If you recall from this post I’ve been concerned about a massive
development proposed to be built nearby since I learned of it last summer. As detailed in the same post, my appeal
of #1 and #2 of four requests by the developer found me as the sole participant
in a hearing examination back on November 8. It was incredibly stressful and time consuming. The examiner was supposed to make his
decision within 15 days; however, it wasn’t January 23 that the parties were
informed of his decision – two months longer than expected. He found in favor of the developer and
city on both points and the third request (the approval to allow the developer
to increase the limit of the buildings to four stories high - discussed on the
November 16 hearing) was also approved by the hearing examiner in the same
report.
I wasn’t able to attend the November 16 meeting and since
that meeting was the first opportunity to officially comment on that third
point the hearing examiner’s decision to allow four story buildings was appealable to the city council. Since so many of my concerns about the
scale of the complex relate to the size of the development, I decided I needed
to file an official appeal regarding the building heights and see this thing
through to the end. I submitted my
appeal the morning we left on vacation - February 14. I was notified on February 23 that the
appeal before the council would be held on Tuesday, March 20. That gave me plenty of time to
prepare; however, knowing how stressful it would be I decided I would wait
until the week before to start rereading through all the documents and
compiling my arguments. I’ve
learned that it’s better for me to take on one big thing at a time and I didn't want this to take over my life for the next four weeks. For the most part I’m pretty good about
pushing off something stressful until it’s time to focus on it. Sure I thought about it everyday, but I
didn’t let myself get worked up about it until I decided it was time. Anyhow, I spent a couple full days
preparing and a few other hours here and there. The day of the appeal was crazy! Abigail had her first home tennis match, Carly had lacrosse
practice, Jason was supposed to have piano lessons and his fifth grade concert
was that evening as well as youth for the girls and boy scouts. I cancelled the piano lessons and we
skipped scouts, but the rest we were able to manage.
The difference about this appeal was that it was a quasi-judicial
closed-record appeal meaning no new evidence could be brought in. In addition the format was much
different. There was one other
person who submitted an appeal though his arguments were based more on the
structure of the buildings and mine covered more of the scale of the project –
i.e. the size of the units (4-5 bedrooms!) and the impacts that would have on
our traffic and student population.
Each party was given 20 minutes.
The appellants were allowed an opportunity for rebuttal, but both our argument
and rebuttal was limited to 20 minutes total. I was first up, then the other appellant, then the
developer, then the city, and then it was back to me and the other appellant to
use up the remainder of our 20 minutes in rebuttal.
Before beginning, each council member was questioned by the
mayor whether they have had “ex parte” or off the record communications with
the parties involved. In addition
they were asked if they had any relationships or involvement that would
materially affect their ability to impartially decide on the matter. Unfortunately, one of the council
members had testified at the November meeting (smack dab in the middle waiting
to find out if she’d won the election be on the city council) in opposition to
the development so she had to step down from her seat and leave the
meeting. It would have been to my
advantage to have someone on the council tonight that was familiar with the
project and shared my concerns.
Another interesting part of this process was that one of the
council members is the brother of one of my closest friends, we’ve gotten
together socially many times - his daughter is one of Abigail best friends,
they recently moved into our ward, etc…
He and I have had several conversations about the development since the
summer – he signed one of the approved documents I previously appealed. He disclosed our
relationships/discussions and then the mayor asked if I felt this council
member should step down. I
didn’t. I expressed that I knew he
would have no problem telling me he disagreed with me and I would have no
problem doing the same for him.
Honestly, it’s pretty amazing I can still like the guy when he is
supporting something I so strongly oppose.
I was well prepared and thankfully my nerves stayed in check
so I was able to communicate my arguments clearly. While the legal representatives from the developer and the
city presented their 20 minute arguments I was taking notes and had come
prepared with defenses to counterargument their points. I say this in the most humble way I
can, but my rebuttal was awesome.
I refuted their points with opposing facts including references to evidence
and testimony given at hearing examination. I felt fantastic when I sat down. Not fantastic like I’ve got this in the bag, I knew I had
little to no chance of overturning the hearing examiners decision, but I felt
I’d done the best I possibly could to communicate my concerns.
The council began their discussion in the same room;
however, when council members started openly questioning whether the hearing
examiner may have not taken into consideration some of the issues I addressed
their lawyer advised them to go into a closed session to deliberate.
They deliberated, privately, for over 45 minutes then they
all came back to their seats and unanimously upheld the hearing examiners
decision.
Not at all surprising, but still incredibly
frustrating. What bothered me most
was what they (my council member “friend”) said after the ruling, “I share some of the concerns that Mr.
Babcock and Mrs. Fletcher have stated here, but given the very, very narrow
grounds that we have to rule on tonight, a lot of that can’t factor into my
decision. The good news I think is, even if this is approved as we go through
design review I think there are opportunities to make sure that some of the
issues that have been brought up by Holly and Adam can be addressed. I’m not
suggesting it’s going to eliminate a fourth floor, but I do think there are
opportunities to make sure that this does fit as perfectly as possible with the
look and feel of our community. So more to come on that.”
So that sounds somewhat encouraging, right? But here’s the deal. In the hearing examiners findings
similar statements were made, “this is something that should be taking into consideration
during the design planning”, “the city should take these traffic issues into consideration
during the construction of the development,” etc… So who’s going to be
following up with the city planning commission to make sure these issues and
concerns are addressed? I lack
faith that they city commissioner will do that on his own and I’m not sure the
city council plays any part in the planning of this development beyond what
they did tonight. So who’s going
to babysit them and make sure they do what they say they will. Please don’t tell me that it might need
to be me cause I want out. I never
really wanted in. I’d hoped I
could leave this meeting tonight and wipe my hands of it, but I don’t know that
I can just hand it over and trust that these “opportunities” will be
taken.
If you recall there is that fourth request that is next to be
addressed. Several of my concerns
fall into this fourth point as well.
I’ve said them all. I
really, really hope that this as far as my involvement needs to go and that
everything that has been discussed up to this point will be taken into
consideration going forward. It’s
been quite the ride. I don’t
regret taking it, but I really won’t be at all sad if I never step foot in city
hall again.
The day after I was emailed a copy of the signed document as
well as a link to the video recording of the proceedings posted on the city’s
YouTube channel – surprise!
The local newspaper also published an article on the meeting
though they misstated some facts and in my opinion left out some of real meat
of it, but I guess that’s media.
Someone in the neighborhood posted the above article to our
neighborhood Facebook page and asked if it meant that the affordable housing
development is going to be built – of course people respond with their little
mad faces and I’m like come on people! Where have you been? {insert eye roll} I
get it though. So many people wrote
in letters to the city when this initially came out but the process has been so
frustrating and our voices continually ignored that they’ve checked out. It’s been overwhelming, discouraging
and SO incredibly time consuming. I
wish we could just trust that our city leaders have the city’s best interest in
mind at all times – in this case I believe they have coward in that
regard.
