Haik,

You need to pay more attention to reality here. Adrian actually only wants to table those amendments that have been made by individual city councilors or small groups of city councilors (not those amendments made by the city council zoning rewrite committee, which are already incorporated in the draft ordinance). Stay with me here: The problem with this approach is that many of the amendments proposed outside of the committee are aimed at correcting (or countering) what the committee did. So, if you delay dealing with the amendments, you essentially kill the zoning rewrite, at least for the time being. I don't believe that the draft will (or should) pass in its current form.

 

Adrian's none too deep.

 

I don't believe that the draft will (or should) pass in its current form.

Isn't its "current form" what the city just spent several years and half a million dollars on? Now that's not worth anything until a bunch of councilors rewrite it all for free? Why'd we hire Owiso Makuku?

What's wrong with passing the thing we paid for and considering the amendments down the road?

 

What's wrong with passing it? Because, after the Planning Commission and the hired guns to whom you refer finished with it, a small group of City Councilors (on the zoning rewrite committee) began to amend it, and some of those amendments made it into the proposed draft. (The Free Press, with their miserable reporting, has not made this clear.)

 

There are three Democrats (Montroll, Shannon, Ellis) and two Progressives (Ashe, McDonough) on the zoning rewrite committee.

Who among them are you referring to and which of their amendments destroy the zoning rewrite for you?

Here's your chance to make clear what The Free Press (I assume you mean John Briggs) did not.

 

To my knowledge, the three Dems on the committee proposed the amendments in question. Councilor Jane Knodell summed the key ones up in today's Free Press:

"In its current, June 20 draft form, the new zoning ordinance down-sizes downtown. That is, it provides for less commercial growth downtown than our current ordinance! It also includes certain new provisions, such as a twelve-foot setback throughout downtown, and large height setbacks to create view corridors, that seem designed to kill any and all new development downtown by removing all reasonable profit from any new project."

Ever notice how those who squack most about protecting views of the lake are typically those privileged to live in buildings that blocked many a view when they were built. Barbara McGrew, who recently opined in the Free Press that "Burlington's soul is at stake" in the zoning rewrite, might as well have said that what is really at stake is a portion of her own precious view: it seems that she resides in a penthouse above Key Bank and has participated in taking to court a development proposed near her domain. She's not the only example. Residents of the enormous condominium building on the corner of College and Battery have opposed other developments and worried aloud at Council meetings about efforts -- such as those of Knodell and other Councilors -- to apply common sense to the notion of "view corridors." Residents of the condos perched on top of Main Street Landing's building on Battery Street at Main have gone to court to derail an approved mixed-use building that would diminish their views --from a building that blocked the view of a building that blocked the view of a building that blocked the view in this the city that Jack built.

 

Clear as mud.

You're saying twelve foot setbacks and view corridors were inserted into the Owiso Makuku draft by the Dems in committee?

First of all, those aren't bad ideas. Having setbacks is safer than not, as evidenced by the recent construction on Battery Street at the new Marriott. Work on the building had to take place in the street itself rather than on the setback and the traffic redirection was not properly planned. Made for some sketch.

Secondly, have you ever noticed those who squawk most about setbacks, views and reasonable parking are either Republicans, or Progressives? What is gives with this unholy alliance?

I don't know. If the best you can come up with is setbacks and view corridors as the reason sixty-two thousand amendments are necessary, well- I have to congratulate Ed on trying to slow this thing down, and Kurt on slowing it down somewhat (since this comment string began).

I don't get the "free" press and I didn't find Jane's comments on their website today either, but if I trust your quote and believe she said the setback amendments "seem designed to kill any and all new development downtown by removing all reasonable profit from any new project," then I would have to say that's an opinion, not a statement of fact.

My question remains however. If we paid one woman over 200K to work on this thing for a little over a year, and spend 450K on it total, because we have to pay experts who know what they're doing, then who do the councilors think they are to go messing with it? And for free! They could have just written the thing to begin with and put that 450K in Bob's municipal rainy day fund. (Go Bob Kiss!)

Please don't tell me the gazillion amendments on the table now are just a response to some setbacks Joan and Andy wanted. I may be good looking, but I wasn't born yesterday.

 

Wrong again, Haik. I don't care if most of the many amendments are delayed. But those related to setbacks and view corridors -- and some others -- were indeed inserted by Dems after the consultants and the Planning Commission finished with the draft. Pay attention. The goal of the zoning rewrite was to reorganize a document that had been amended willy-nilly without reorganization for forty years. The amendments in question have nothing to do with that fundamental reorganization, but everything to do with Councilors pushing their personal agendas. It's a battle between those who want the city frozen in time and those who see the need to develop appropriately, between a suburban mentality and an urban mentality, to simplify things a bit. Any alliance between Progs and Republicans results from a shared awareness (with obvious limits to the sharing) of the need for development in order for Burlington to realize its potential as a city and to remain the economic center in Chittenden County. Councilor Knodell's op-ed can be found under "opinion" in yesterday's Free Press online. (By the way, the proposed setbacks would NOT have affected the Marriot construction. It will affect future development on about a dozen narrower downtown streets.)

 

What do you mean "wrong again?" I'm not disputing that the Dems added the setback requirements.

"The amendments in question have nothing to do with that fundamental reorganization, but everything to do with Councilors pushing their personal agendas."

I agree this is correct, not just about the re-write committee's amendments, but about all the amendments proposed since too.

"Councilor Knodell's op-ed can be found under "opinion" in yesterday's Free Press online."

Opinion.

"By the way, the proposed setbacks would NOT have affected the Marriot construction. It will affect future development on about a dozen narrower downtown streets"

You mean something proposed for the future won't affect something that happened in the past? You don't say. Meaningless propagandizing statements like that insult people's intelligence. This is why a lot of folks find the Progs grating. You're not going to make your case with mind tricks and talking down to people.

 

Wrong again, Haik. Jumping to conclusions as usual. The Marriott project and the adjacent condo building would not have been affected by the 12-foot setback requirement because they are more than 12 feet from the curb.

 

So it's already more than 12 feet from the curb. And you want to get rid of even that? Do you want to have sidewalks at all, or should traffic be running two inches away from a brick wall? Sounds like a habitat that's bad for cars, and worse for people. What's the driving force here? Profit?

Is it safe to say yet that the Progressives have forgotten who they are?

 

Wrong again, Haik, on numerous counts.

I'm mostly a Democrat these days(though not crazy about political parties period).

Repeating, there are about a dozen streets where 12-foot setbacks would be problematic; think of those with narrower sidewalks like Center, parts of St. Paul, King, Maple, and Cherry, not to mention other commerical streets like North Street. These aren't bad places for people to walk, even though the historic buildings abut the sidewalk and stand less than 12 feet from the curb. Are you threatened by the Daily Planet building being so close to the sidewalk?!

 

Well it sounds like you know a lot more about this than I do. Still I'm not persuaded. I think Ed Adrian's push to table most amendments was a good idea, not to mention politically savvy. Nobody understands this shit, and most people who pay attention at all have been taken by surprise by all these amendments.

I say pass it as it came out of the committee, warts and all, and work out the kinks over time through amendments based on experience rather than speculation.

We paid a lot of money to reorganize what had become a patchwork of "willy-nilly" changes and amendments, but guess what... It's going to become exactly that once again starting now anyway, because that's just life. You are never going to get a perfect document and things change constantly.

You should probably take your concerns directly to Andy, Joan and Russ. See what they have to say. If you can convince them they ruined 450K's worth of work with their amendments, I'm sure the council would kick it back to them to fix it.