November 10, 2019

No Public Input on Edgewood at Plan Commission?

Wow. They haven’t had public input since August but the public hearing has been closed. It’s unconscionable that Plan Commission wouldn’t re-open the public hearing and allow public input.

Yes, public input can be tedious when people repeat the same talking points and don’t add something new to the conversation, but it is an important part of the democratic process that is well worth the monotony for committee and council members. I find public input has many gems in it and changes can happen because of good input. Plus the themes that develop are important to determining legal requirements for making decisions. The Edgewood Master Plan issue has been going back and forth with lawsuits and proposals for months now. The item on the plan commission has been re-referred since August.

NO PUBLIC INPUT, PUBLIC HEARING IS CLOSED?

These notes appear on their agenda (Monday, 5:30):

Reminder: The Plan Commission closed the public hearing and referred this matter at its August 26, 2019 meeting.

Note: This item has generated a significant number of public comments related to the request. Due to the volume of comments, copies of those comments have not been provided to the Plan Commission with their printed materials for this meeting. However, all of the comments received have been attached to the legislative file (ID 56839). Comments received for the August 26, 2019 meeting may be found at the “Public_Comments_PC_8-26-19.pdf” link. Comments received since may be found at the “Public_Comments_PC_11-11-19.pdf” link. The Plan Commission is encouraged to review those comments in advance of the meeting.

NEW INFORMATION

Staff have new comments as of 10-28-19, which is after the last public input was given. In those comments they note:

In recommending referral of the repeal request on August 26, members of the Plan Commission requested more information on the impacts of repeal, the relationship between repealing the master plan and the proposed changes to the Campus-Institutional (CI) zoning district, and the status of the agreements that governed the property before the property was zoned CI. This memo briefly summarizes staff’s perspective on those three questions.

So Plan Commission was seeking additional information as well. Why wouldn’t they allow the public to comment on it?

There is also a new ordinance in place. The staff report says:

On October 1, 2019 the Common Council adopted the Third Substitute for Ordinance 19-00069 (ID 56981), amending various provisions in the CI zoning district of the Zoning Code. The Plan Commission recommended approval of the third substitute at its September 16 meeting.

The approved text amendment more clearly delineates the difference between indoor and outdoor uses and clarifies that the construction of a new building or additions to existing buildings that exceed 4,000 square feet in floor area within any five-year period in a CI district without an adopted master plan require conditional use approval. Further, the amendment requires that primary and secondary uses occurring outside of enclosed buildings obtain conditional use approval, including outdoor sports and recreational facilities, surface parking, utilities and transportation facilities, and open stadiums and arenas, except that the Zoning Administrator may issue permits to repair or replace any existing facility related to a primary or secondary use if the proposed facility is of a similar built condition and at a similar location on the zoning lot as the existing facility. The approved text amendment also adds “places of worship” as a primary use in CI zoning, whereas it had previously been a secondary use.

In the event that the repeal of the Edgewood Campus Master Plan is approved as requested by the three Edgewood institutions, the campus would be subject to the provisions in Section 28.097 of the Zoning Code as amended on October 1, which are applicable to all CI districts without adopted master plans.

Clearly things have changed and the public should be able to comment on those changes and how it impacts this decision.

CHILLING EFFECT/COUNCIL END UP DOING COMMITTEE WORK

The note on the agenda isn’t really in plain language, but will likely prevent people from coming to show up. And Tag Evers blog post explains the note and most likely will prevent people from showing up to express their concerns about everything that has happened since August.

Worse yet, if people can’t come to the plan commission to testify, then anything they have to say will be done at the council meeting and the council will end up doing the job of the plan commission.

PLAN COMMISSION CAN FIX THIS

The Plan Commission can re-open the public hearing and allow the public to comment on the new information that has been obtained since August. In fact, they probably should given the protest petitions (elector, owner) (requires council to pass the motion with 3/4 votes of the council) Otherwise they may be inviting further lawsuits.

All they need to do it for someone to make a motion, someone to second and they vote to re-open the public hearing. When they re-open the public hearing they could even limit it to people who haven’t yet spoken or to have people only speak to new issues.

I’d be really disappointed if they don’t re-open the public hearing. If they don’t want to do their jobs, they should step aside and let the approximately 60 others that want to be on plan commission do the job.