Ken & Mitchell,
At the RCAC meeting November 18th you provided information about two Quick Guides for
Rezoning Petitions and Preliminary Development Plans. In the information are statements
that the new "Comprehensive Plan draws the distinction between "guiding"
policies, intended to guide City decisions; and "prescriptive" policies, which
are intended to influence private sector actions and are typically worded as
"should" statements." As the complete plan is available on the web site in
PDF form I did a word search on those two terms and found 0 references to prescriptive
policies and only 4 references to "guiding" related to policies. Am I missing
something? If this evaluation process is so fundamental to the Plan and Code why is there
no mention of these terms in the Plan document. I also notice that the date on the handout
says "Effective November 1, 2009. Was this ever brought forward to Council as a City
Policy recommendation? Will the new Comprehensive Plan be amended to capture this rezoning
case and development plan evaluation policy and in so doing provide a forum for public
input to the process similar to a Text Change?
It seems to me that several of the statements in the Quick Guides will significantly
diminish the ability of citizens to apply Overlay District Zoning be it Historic or
Neighborhood Conservation since by intent these overlay districts are most likely to be
more restrictive than the underlying zoning districts within a land use category. Your
guide would suggest that since such Overlay Districts would differ from the intended
future land use they would be considered inconsistent with the Plan and recommended for
denial. How will you reconcile these differing objectives?
Paul
paulbrant(a)mindspring.com