'Overlay' district to be topic of Thursday meeting

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'Overlay' district to be topic of Thursday meeting

Posted by

Mark Beardsley

in Area Headline News

Wednesday, May 30. 2012

Comment (1)

Commerce property owners concerned about how the proposed East Jackson Overlay zoning district will affect future use of their land along state highways leading into Commerce will have one more chance to become informed before the city council votes on the district.

The council and Commerce Planning Commission will hold a public hearing Thursday night at 6:00 in the Commerce Civic Center.

The district, a joint project of the Jackson County and Commerce planning departments, strives to improve the entranceways to Commerce by imposing new development standards over and above the zoning ordinances imposed by the county and the city.

A handful of property owners — most of them with property in the county, which has already approved the district — have expressed concern that the district will stifle development and impose unreasonable costs.
One of the purposes of the meeting is to dispel those concerns, notes city planning director David Zellner.

For example, the overlay requires at the time of new development the implementation of a comprehensive stormwater retention/drainage system, a deceleration or turn lane on the highway and landscaping.

“All of those are already required,” Zellner points out. “The EPD makes you account for every drop of rainwater that falls on your property, and the DOT is going to require you to put in a deceleration lane anyway.”

The overlay adds requirements such as “meandering” sidewalks and pedestrian lighting, defines building materials for commercial or industrial buildings, limits the style and size of signs, requires parking lot and sidewalk connectivity to adjoining developed parcels and requires a minimum size of 2,000 heated square feet for new buildings. It also requires more specific landscaping than the underlying city or county zoning ordinances.

Jackson County senior planner Toni Smith and Zellner will be present to answer questions. Mayor Clark Hill and Commissioner Chas Hardy are also expected to attend, along with members of the Commerce City Council.

The council was scheduled to vote on a do-pass recommendation from the Commerce Planning Commission at its May meeting, but agreed to defer the decision to allow for the holding of the informational meeting.

Virtually no one from the public attended the prior public hearings for the plan that were held in Commerce.

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#1 Dave on 06/06/12 at 01:54 PM [Reply]

Curious as to why there does not seem to be a follow up story on the 2nd public meeting for the overlay district. Mark Beardsley was in attendance along with the other political parties mentioned in the previous story, but unlike the first reported meeting with "no one in attendance" there were approximately 12 -15 citizens present. There were no favorable comments regarding the plans, only concerns voiced and voiced again by the citizens in attendance.
During the course of the meeting we learned that the county had passed its overlay plans after holding "meetings" with virtually no one in attendance. The presenters seemed proud of the fact that they had followed the rules of notifications for public meetings. But they were oblivious to the moral responsibility of their jobs to be sure the ones impacted were properly informed. They admitted taking no action to inform the parties that would be directly impacted by the passage of the overlay district of any planned meetings or discussions. It would seem appropriate and relevant to inform the parties along a highway, for example, if the highway suddenly was to be changed. Rather the approach that was used was to inform the general public via a notice in the paper, which in this day and time is not the most effective means of communicating information.

Also, one has to question the drive behind such a plan. The question was asked at the meeting but never directly answered. Who is driving this seemingly urgent need to develop a plan called the Overlay District??
Perhaps, since we have two entities, Jackson county planning and Commerce planning, each with one or more paid positions to support, each paid planner feels compelled to justify their position by coming up with "plans".
As expressed in the meeting by those in attendance, we do not want to be like Gwinnett county, Duluth, or GA 400 corridors?

By the way, those citizens in attendance were people that live on the effective roadways covered by the overlay plans.

Back to my question, why is there no follow up story on the second meeting and the questions that were brought up?

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