[Vision2020] RE: Tribune uncovers new Moscowpro-growth gro

Thu Jun 1 18:03:48 PDT 2006

Gary,  

I am not sure why you suggest that it is equally clear that the MCA is "a long way from being pro-growth."  You seem to imply that all growth is good, and that opposing any particular project makes the opponent of the project "not pro-growth."  If I understand you correctly, I disagree with you on both counts.

You assert that those who object to a re-zone of property, that is owned and sought to be developed by others, are trying to dictate to those others how to develop their property.  In some instances, I think you are close to correct, and I find it a little presumptuous for others to be so "helpful" in coming up with alternative proposals for the property owner, (though those "helpful 'here's an alternative development possibility' sorts" are really only suggesting, not dictating).  But in reality, the multitude of complaining citizens are voicing their opinions on how the re-zone will affect their own property and community, not telling the developers how to develop their land.  The zoning ordinance, itself, (upon which we all relied when we bought our land) is what limits the development rights of everyone who owns land within its bounds.  

The nub of this argument is over what is a "straight forward and not overly restrictive set of guidelines" for development.  That is an easy question to answer for me: the zoning code.  

You seem to suggest that if a developer wants to change the rules of the game by re-zoning property and allowing a heretofore dis-allowed use in a neighborhood, that the developer should be permitted to do so as a matter of right.  Your test for whether the growth was appropriate or not is an after the fact assessment: whether the development succeeds or fails in the market.  

Both the MCA and I understand that re-zoning is sometimes necessary to allow for growth.  Where we seem to disagree with you is on whether the community, whose collective property may be affected by a proposed re-zone, has a right to provide input on the re-zone when the re-zone will effect not only the land subject to the re-zone request, but the surrounding property and community, too.  In those circumstances, I think the community should have input on whether and how to allow re-zone proposals without being automatically labeled as "anti-growth." 

I think that if a developer can't sell the community on the value of its proposed "new rules," changed game, and re-zoned property, the community has no obligation to the developer and ought not automatically re-zone the property.  The developer DOES have the unfettered right to develop his or her land within the restrictions imposed by the zoning ordinance.  However, the developer DOES NOT have the automatic right to more intensive uses of property than are allowed in a particular neighborhood.  Such uses ought to go where they are planned and prescribed under the existing zoning ordinance, not wherever a particular property owner wishes to site them -- most especially when those uses are prohibited under the existing zoning code at the developer's proposed site.  

Many citizens, especially nearby neighbors to a proposed development, think that the current zoning should mean something -- it is, after all, a law upon which we relied when we bought our land in the first place.  While the scope and intensity of any particular re-zone proposal may be acceptable to the community, not all developments that require a change in  zoning are an appropriate fit in the existing neighborhood or the town.  You seem to label as anti-growth any group that raises objections to any development proposal.  But the MCA and most citizens do not object to all growth.  We object to growth that is so significantly different from that already allowed that it not only would require zoning amendments but also would detrimentally change the character of our neighborhood and community.  You seem to gloss over the fact that in purchasing our land in the first place we relied upon the governing limitations of the zoning ordinance and its protection of OUR private property rights.  

What we are trying to do is encourage growth that is consistent with our laws and best accounts for effects beyond the development -- effects the community at-large needs to absorb and finance as best we can, whether those effects involve transportation, infrastructure, water or increased demands on police or fire protection.  Generally speaking, I don't hear people objecting to growth that fits within the parameters of the existing zoning category, (with the possible exception of water issues not covered by the zoning ordinance).  People are objecting most strenuously to proposals that require a change in zoning to a more intensive use that many think will have the effect of imposing a quantum change in our community and neighborhood, thereby affecting the property rights of us all.  

What people find most objectionable is changing the rules of the game after they bought property and relied upon the zoning code for a semblance of reliability and stability in their neighborhood.  In buying land in a place like Moscow that is governed by a zoning ordinance, we all gave up our unfettered right to develop land without any regulation and instead acceded to the restrictions of the zoning ordinance.  The trade-off is obvious: we don't get to do anything we want to our land, but neither do other landowners.  The zoning ordinance controls what is allowed.

The fundamentally wrong part of your premise, as I see it, Gary, is the notion that we, MCA, or any other citizen for that matter, are not pro-growth because we object to a particular proposal that a developer wishes to see imposed here.  But the fact is that in the few development proposals that a mass of citizens find objectionable, the developer is seeking ACCOMMODATIONS and CONCESSIONS from the City, in the way of re-zoning, variances, etc.  What I understand  you and the Greater Moscow Alliance ("GMA") to be saying is that those who object to ANY re-zone proposal are "anti-growth" and improperly limiting the developer's property rights.  That mantra is BUNK, and an occasional objection to a mis-placed and ill-conceived development does not make the objector "anti-growth."  To suggest that everyone has a right to do with their land as they wish, in a community that has adopted a zoning ordinance, is to ignore the covenant that a zoning ordinance provides -- some surety for each of us that the land next door in a particular use category will not be changed to some other more intensive use without our consent as a community, as decided by the P&Z and then Council, after community hearings.

If you bought a house in an R-2 neighborhood, you would have every right to object to your neighbor seeking to put a rendering factory, oil refinery or large scale retail development next-door.  Objecting to that inappropriate use does not make you anti-growth.  Likewise, to suggest that a re-zone is an entitlement in a community that has a zoning ordinance may be "pro-growth at all costs" but it also ignores the purpose of adopting a zoning ordinance -- the dependability of clearly stated, allowable uses for land in a particularly zoned neighborhood.  

In my opinion, this town has been entirely too loose with rezoning any property at any developer's request.  The prior councils and city staff have been all too willing to ignore the zoning ordinance by haphazardly amending it on an ad hoc, project-by-project basis, crafting whatever exceptions into the zoning ordinance that a developer requests.  Instead, we have endured a hodge-podge of re-zones, a parcel at a time, all the while diminishing the justified expectations of the neighbors in the use of their nearby land.  Most of us relied upon the zoning in this town when we bought our land.  We did not intend to develop or change the allowed uses in our neighborhoods, but instead anticipated that the existing zoning would limit not just ourselves but our neighbors, too, to the allowed uses under the code.  What about our property rights and reliance interests?  Preserving property values and quality of life in our community while supporting sustainable growth under the Smart Growth principles is pro-growth and a long, long way from "anti-growth."

You also seem to suggest that we should buy any land that we don't want changed.  I agree with you, in part.  When the developer merely seeks to develop his or her land within the limits of the current zoning category and does not seek special treatment, allowances, and a change in the governing zoning regulations, the developer has a right to proceed.  We might not like the transformation of a nearby pastoral setting to a passel of houses, but we would seem to have little or no basis for objecting to the developer's right to build those houses if the property were already zoned residential and for the requested density.  

However, when the developer seeks special accommodations and re-zoning to a more intensive use, that is another story.  That developer may be affecting my property rights adversely, because the effects of the new, unforeseen and previously unallowed uses may leak beyond the developer's property to my own and diminish my property value or enjoyment.  Because I relied upon the existing zoning of the neighborhood when I bought my land, I have a right to object to zoning changes that I perceive will adversely effect my property without being labeled anti-growth.  

Growth in highly intensive uses, especially, is best placed where it is allowed, and not wherever the developer-of-the-month asks to put it after a re-zone.   

Bruce Livingston
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: g. crabtree 
  To: Bruce and Jean Livingston ; Matt Decker ; vision2020 at moscow.com 
  Sent: Thursday, May 25, 2006 7:33 AM
  Subject: Re: [Vision2020] RE: Tribune uncovers new Moscowpro-growth gro

  Bruce, It's clear from your post that you do not feel that the MCA is a "no growth" organization. But it's equally clear that it's a long way from being pro growth. What it appears to me to be is a growth by strangling committee group. A here is our vision of how property that is not ours should look and be used club. If you stand in the way of the kinds of development that developer's actually are willing to put their money on the line for, can you honestly say you're in favor of growth? To proclaim yourselves as "smart growth" advocates is to say that you're in favor of a set of confused and contradictory goals design to leave everyone dissatisfied. It would seem to me that pro growth is to let the people with a real vested interest in any given project move ahead under a straight forward and not overly restrictive set of guidelines and let the community vote with its patronage. In a society where failure is seldom rewarded, mistakes will likely not be repeated. To try and make everybody happy on the front end of every project is to create needless road blocks and stagnation.

  Gary Crabtree
    ----- Original Message ----- 
    From: Bruce and Jean Livingston 
    To: Matt Decker ; vision2020 at moscow.com 
    Sent: Tuesday, May 23, 2006 12:45 AM
    Subject: RE: [Vision2020] RE: Tribune uncovers new Moscowpro-growth gro

    Whoa Nellie!

    Matt, I think you need to stop buying what certain "growth at all costs" types are selling in their inaccurate smear of the MCA as an organization favoring no-growth.  We are by no means a "no-growth"-seeking organization.  

    We seek to bring open public discussion and planning -- long range planning especially -- back into the process.  We seek to incorporate into our City better pedestrian and bicycle corridors, sidewalks, mixed uses and cluster developments that use forward thinking combinations of higher densities, and more shared, open space.   We seek sustainable community development, not stagnation.  There is a continuum of positions on the growth spectrum, from no growth on the one hand to unregulated, absolute power to develop one's land without regard to the effect on one's neighbors on the other.  MCA is not for the former;  I would hazard a guess that GMA is not for the latter.  Time will tell.

    Up until recently, this City has operated on a basis that had relegated the zoning code to an advisory document, spot-zoning and re-zoning property willy-nilly at the request of any developer -- regardless of the conflict any particular proposal may have had with the Comprehensive Plan.  Evidence of that sad pattern can be found with the prior council's frittering away of the West A street commercial property that has been turned into one apartment complex after another.  The "pro-growth at all costs" crowd decries the current "lack" of motor business land in the City and uses that alleged "lack" as a basis for asserting the necessity of re-zoning the Thompson property.  Those same "pro-growth regardless of the costs" folks include those who spent much of our best motor business land on short term, short-sighted, frenzies of granting every request to turn A Street into apartments  -- in an area that has no adequate pedestrian crossing of the largest road in our City for the numerous pedestrian students who were locating in those apartments.  

    Smart Growth we advocate, not "no growth."  http://www.idahosmartgrowth.org/

    The best place for heavy commercial growth was always along the Pullman Highway and behind Third Street on A, as was set forth in the Comprehensive Plan.  The recently annexed university-owned land north of the Palouse Mall is an obvious motor business area, and it serves far wiser planning and strategic needs by its location as close to Pullman as we can place it, while retaining a Latah County location.   The good folks of Troy will drive through Moscow and past our downtown to get to the Moscow motor business developments near the state line.  The Pullmanites and WSU students, particularly those using the bus, seem much less likely to drive or hitch a ride to the far side of eastern Moscow, especially as their choices expand in Whitman County.  

    Being opposed to a misguided and ill-conceived, 77 acre motor business re-zone on the east side of town does not make one anti-growth.  It makes one opposed to that particular development.

    Likewise, as evidenced by prior discussion on this list, expressing concern and seeking solutions about water usage on the Palouse is not anti-growth.  In fact, it is pro-growth.  The Seattle model, referenced by Nils Peterson and Mark Solomon on V2020 discussions, is worthy of pursuit here.  Seattle was able to grow -- substantially -- while actually cutting its water usage through thoughtful, long-term conservation policies.  We, too, can do the same.  Given our scarce and declining water supply, why not seek to implement water conserving policies that will enable future growth, rather than blindly play a game of chicken with an aquifer of unknown size and dimensions?  Preserving our water through thoughtful and proven conservation methods preserves our ability to grow for the long term.  Our County Commissioners, two of whom are Republicans, have listened and learned from Diane French, Mark Solomon and others on the water issue, so don't be so quick to dismiss Diane and Mark as having ideas that take root only on the left, when the evidence is to the contrary and their hard work on water management benefits us all.

    Personally, I also welcome discussion of a reservoir.  I oppose injection of the pristine waters of the Grand Ronde aquifer with relatively filthy runoff from muddy fields laden with various herbicides, pesticides, fertilizers, and assorted other pollutants.  But opposing injection of the Grand Ronde does not make me anti-growth, Matt, it makes me opposed to that particular water management option among a myriad of choices that enhance the possibility of and favor long-term growth.

    I am pro-growth.  Most in the MCA are as well.  Several years ago the MCA Board took a position favoring growth.  We accepted the Smart Growth model, and rejected a no growth alternative.  That position has not changed.

    We in the MCA welcome the GMA to the discussion; undoubtedly the community at large does, too.  Informed and open discussion is enlightening and useful to all.  Overall, my sense is that the Moscow community is glad that the MCA arrived and changed the discussion from private conversations of a few policymakers, movers and shakers to a much larger group of people throughout the community who are all engaged in the discussion.  The GMA will undoubtedly add its voice to the discussion, which can only be a good thing.  Let the marketplace of ideas percolate and see what happens.  But don't mis-apprehend the MCA as being anti-growth, for we are not.

    Bruce Livingston

    Matt Decker said:
    | Remember this(GMA) group was established because of the Mark Solomans, Diane 
    | Frenchs, and the MCA groups that back up their no growth attitudes. Smart 
    | Growth, Please. Disguise it however you like, but it just adds up to little 
    | or nil growth. The attitudes of these people are just to aggressive for 
    | Moscow. Yes some of the people in the group have lives outside of the 
    | computer, that depend on growth, including myself.
    | 
    | See what we can do first before belittling us to a bunch of money crazed 
    | good ol boy. This group also wants what is best for Moscow.
    | 
    | MD
    | 
    | Matt

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