[Maillist] MLK and West`

[Ben Schotz]

Here's MTCW (my two cents' worth):
But first I gotta understand what we're talking about. And for this
purpose a short chronology is perhaps in order. The first meeting Mr.
Hale had with several neighbors was at Bill Monroe's house about 3 weeks
ago and was attended by only me, Bill, Megan Meisenbach, Phil Wiley, and
perhaps one or two others. The first meeting which was for the
neighborhood as a whole to discuss Mr. Hale's proposal was at Mark
Seeger and Jeff Harper's house about 2 weeks ago. That second meeting
was sparsely attended (about 11 households, I think), but a principle
was clearly articulated and if not unanimously then virtually
unanimously supported: the neighborhood should oppose any attempts for
any more intensive zoning on any piece of property in the neighborhood.
It was suggested, in fact, that this position, if adopted by the
neighborhood as a whole, be publicized so that any person who is
thinking of making an approach to the neighborhood would know our
position ahead of time.
In the current case, Mr. Hale's proposals regarding the MLK and West
property, that would mean that the neighborhood would oppose a change
from MF-4/LO to MF-6.
At the meeting at Bill Monroe's house on September 11, Mr. Hale showed
us his scaled-down vision for the property: 47 units, 94 cars, 68 feet
high. It could be built either after an zoning change to MF-6 or it
could be done under the present zoning with several variances granted by
the Board of Adjustment. Mr. Hale would clearly prefer to go the zoning
change route because it would require less time to accomplish, and
clearly time = money in his business. And this approach, according to
him, is also preferable to the Board of Adjustment, i.e. the B of A
would rather see a "simple" zoning change to enable a development rather
than a bunch of variances with no zoning change. But since the
neighborhood, in line with our overriding principle, does not support
the zoning change, the approach involving variances is the only one left
for Mr. Hale with us. It was suggested (by me?) that perhaps the B of A
would look more kindly on an application for several variances if the
neighborhood went to them along with the developer. Mr. Hale didn't know
how the B of A would look upon such an approach, but he said he would be
more than happy to approach the B of A along with the neighborhood under
one condition: he would require in writing from the neighborhood that if
the B of A did not grant the variances that then the neighborhood would
not oppose the zoning change to MF-6 to allow the project to go forward.

With this as background, for two reasons I don't see what any
discussions with this sclaed-down project as a basis could accomplish.
Since the neighborhood will not support a zoning change, I do not think
it can go to the B of A with the developer if there is a chance that a
failure there implies the neighborhood's approval for the zoning change.
And that is Mr. Hale's condition for going the B of A route with the
neighborhood. Further: if, at some time in the future, after some sort
of elaborate negotiations between the neighborhood and the developer, a
project along the lines of a negotiated agreement but requiring a zoning
change did come before City Council, I think the neighborhood's position
opposing that zoning change would be severely weakened. If the
neighborhood had essentially agreed to the project under exisitng zoning
with variances, the Council's attitude might very well be "What's the
big deal here over this zoning change; it's just letters on a map after
all,"
So if the purpose of "negotiation" is to work within the framework of
Mr.Hale's latest proposal which he will take along with the neighborhood
to seek the necessary variances, I think we cannot engage in such
discussions.
BUT if you are talking about the neighborhood first coming up with a
firm idea of what it wants to see on that property and presenting that
to Mr Hale to see if he will go for it, I think that makes a lot of
sense. And if Mr.Hale doesn't go for it, perhaps there is some developer
out there who will, and we can go out looking. This seems to me to put
us in the best position to get what we want on that property.
That having been said, I think it very unlikely that Mr. Hale will take
part in this second sortr of such discussion. He has said more than once
that he will not be a party to a process wherein the neighborhood
designs the project. And that's exactly what we want to do. I also think
the time-frame he says he has to stick with will not allow this. But I
think he should be given the opportunity.
That maybe more than two cents' worth, but there it is.
In Solidarity,
Ben Schotz