November 19th Council Meeting

The main issues we faced were rezoning request for a parcel of commercially zoned land wanting to be reverted to industrial and medium density properties wanting to be rezoned to high density to allow for apartment development.

The commercial property abuts the Central Business District along Main Street. The property was formerly industrial and the owner wants to revert it back to industrial. The property was changed to a commercial zoning to better fit into the long term economic development of the City as a whole. It makes little sense to spend so much time and money bringing commercial businesses to downtown and working towards a commuter train stop if we are going to have heavy industrial uses in the same area. The existing business is grandfathered in and may continue to operate forever if they choose to do so. This was all part of the 2 year Comprehensive Planning process and the dozens of public meetings we held.

I was disappointed that the landowner denigrated the work that many have put into redeveloping the downtown. He basically said downtown was dead - I corrected him and hope he will spend a bit more time downtown and see the great growth.

CM Kolb tried for a compromise to rezone from commercial to a light industrial to satisfy the long term development of the City and to ease the concerns of the landowner. The Council directed the issue not be sent back to the Planning Commission but a solution be found by the Development Advisory Committee - CM Kolb and I sit on this committee.

The other item that was discussed related to changing an r3 medium density to r4 high density area along Whiskey just west of the intersection of Whiskey and North Brookview. This area has been r3 for decades and the recent comprehensive plan carried that zoning through. The property owner stated he wanted the higher density to allow for apartment development. I was concerned that high density would be placed next to single family homes. My position was that an r4 development could be designed and presented to the City and at that time the rezoning could be discussed if proper buffering were included in the plan. If the change to r4 were made without knowing the plan the City and that specific neighborhood could be stuck with a bad development and no leverage to change it.

A quick note on an issue being pushed through cities as part of the Towards Zero Deaths program. The issue is the elimination of home delivery of alcohol. This is being presented as a way to prevent minors and irresponsible people from being sold alcohol. We had 3 main concerns with this process. 1 - there is no way to enforce it, 2 - there are already existing state statutes that address this very issue and 3 - the hypocrisy of cities allowing an exemption for their own municipal liquor stores. So it is bad for a business to sell this way but a City can profit from it all day long.