How Did That Happen?

    This past Tuesday Central’s elected officials approved the building of 250 apartments in the new TND (Traditional Neighborhood Development) on 135 acres fronting Sullivan Road across from Wal Mart.  Three things happened in this process that frankly surprised me.  Two of them I’ll explain now, and one will need some further fact-finding.
    I attended meetings in every phase of the creation and adoption of the Master Plan and I had somehow come to believe that Central would never want or need large apartment complexes.  Our Zoning Code allows for apartments in selected areas, but does not allow such complexes in most of Central, including the location of this new TND, The Settlement on Shoe Creek.  So how did this happen?  Simple, it’s a TND.
    A TND is a community within a community, with mixed uses of residential, retail, and commercial.  It gets treated differently than standard zoning, and apartments are a part of what is allowed.  I’ll discuss below my thoughts on the large number of apartments, but at a minimum the ordinances do allow for apartments in a TND.
    I sat in Tuesday’s council meeting and watched as citizen after citizen came to the microphone and spoke overwhelmingly against approving this development with 250 apartments.  Yet, the city council voted unanimously in favor.  How did this happen?  Simple – that is the council’s right.
    I guess the reason I was surprised at the council sticking to their guns and approving it despite the public outcry is that Central’s council has all too often based a decision on how many people came to the meeting and spoke for or against the matter.  Deciding a matter at a council meeting needs always to be done by considering the substance of what is said, not the emotion or quantity of persons speaking.
    I do compliment the council for not changing their votes on the basis of the public comment of some 40 citizens.  However, it does concern me that there were pertinent new issues brought up in the weeks leading up to this decision, and a sufficient number of people, hundreds in fact, raised significant questions.  In the face of that, no matter how sure I had been of my stance, if I were an elected official, I would at least take a second or third look at all information, and might even defer a decision until all questions were answered.
    Finally, Central’s ordinance governing this type of development, a TND, allows for 41 apartments in this project, yet the city has approved 250 to be built.  How did this happen?  I have no idea.
    I began earlier this week asking for an explanation of how Central’s TND ordinance was interpreted to allow this large variance form the calculated apartment quantity of 41.  Our elected officials and city staff have been cooperative and have indicated I will have their response soon.  I look forward to understanding the math employed to arrive at the 250 apartments.
    In next week’s column I will either be passing the acceptable explanation on to you, or I will be stating my objection to the matter.  Either way, if we all agree to disagree respectfully, that will be Good News for a Great City.