[Vision2020] Re: subdivisions (Was "Tribune Uncovers")

[Jeff Harkins]

My appreciation to Bill Bonte and John Dickinson 
for an informative and pleasant dialogue on the 
topic.  Both of your responses were helpful.

As I travel east on Joseph St often, I can easily 
agree that the Joseph Bridge is a real 
problem.  Hopefully, that can be given a high 
priority - before all the properties slated for 
Salisbury and Rolling Hills come on line.

Thanks again John and Bill.

At 12:02 PM 5/28/2006, you wrote:
>Hi-
>
>I’ve stuck a few comments in response to some of 
>the items in this post. I hope they are helpful.
>
>John Dickinson
>
>
>----------
>From: vision2020-bounces at moscow.com 
>[mailto:vision2020-bounces at moscow.com] On Behalf Of bill bonte
>Sent: Sunday, May 28, 2006 10:30 AM
>Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Re: subdivisions (Was "Tribune Uncovers")
>
>
>Reference Mr. Harkins statement that residents of the Rolling Hills
>subdivisions have easy acess to the Joseph Street ball parks and Latah
>Fairgrounds:  It is true that a wonderful stairway was constructed between
>6th street and Hathaway Drive and another between Panorama and the new
>Trinity Baptist Church.  These provide a walkable connection among the
>three neighborhoods.  A further connection is possible to the Fairgrounds
>through the Salsbury neighborhoods (when the streets are completed).  As
>for now, bicycle and foot traffic to the Joseph Street ballparks from all
>neighborhoods east of Paradise Creek must the use Joseph Street Bridge.
>This is one of the most dangerous pedestrian rights of way in Moscow.  Now
>that the traffic has increased in volume and speed it can be life
>threatening to use this narrow bridge.  This is a good example of the
>failure of city development officials.  Before approving the Salsbury
>addition, they should have required the bridge be replaced by a new, wider,
>pedestrian friendly crossing, at the developers' expense.  It is obvious
>that Joseph, east of Paradise Creek will become a major arterial, but no
>provision was made, and the developer was not required to provide right of
>way for future widening of the road.
>
>The bridge on Joseph was approved and funded 
>sometime in the late 1990s. It has not been 
>constructed yet for a number of unconnected 
>little reasons. The latest was that someone 
>questioned whether the bridge was old enough to 
>be of historic interest – and so that needed to 
>be checked out (it is not an historic bridge).
>
>The comprehensive plan does show a connection from the Rollings Hills
>subdivisions to the area of Good Sam and Hordeman Pond, but this does not
>currently exist.  Residents must walk or bike (as Bill London stated) to Mt
>View Rd, and walk along it, without sidewalks most of the way, to D street.
>Once again, the developers of Rolling Hills and the planned Windfall
>subdivision east of Mt. View between Rollings Hills Dr and Paradise Creek,
>shoud be required to provide sidewalks on Mt. View.
>
>Developers are required to provide street 
>improvements along any streets that their 
>development touches. When a development has an 
>impact on streets and roads that are farther 
>away from the development, it is a difficult 
>matter to demand improvements. When there was 
>talk of the high school moving beyond Mt. View 
>Park, that development did include improvements 
>beyond the borders of the development. But the 
>prospects of improvements were worked out with 
>the developers and the city, I don’t think we 
>could have required the improvements. To some 
>extent, every development impacts the entire 
>community and these costs (impacts) are 
>recovered in a variety of development costs, such as water meter installations.
>
>The Comprehensive plan shows a public park at the end of Moser extending to
>the south.  This would further connect the neighborhoods.  The developers
>must have paid into a fund to contruct this park, but it has not been
>started after more than 8 yrs of Rolling Hills 
>development.  I am firmly against
>private parks and doubt their legality.  With 
>the property taxes I pay, I am within
>my rights to expect a public park in my neighborhood, as promised.
>
>The park will exist. It will be a public park. I 
>would like to see our subdivision code include 
>an addition to the parkland dedication section 
>to facilitate the early development of the parks 
>within development. Currently the parks are 
>developed as the land that they exist on is 
>developed. It makes sense, in that a developed 
>park with no streets of sidewalks to get to 
>would be less useful than one with 
>infrastructure – but I still would like to see 
>parks developed early so that they could mature with the neighborhood.
>
>Developers already pay far too little for the 
>privilege of building in Moscow.  They
>can afford to put in right of way connections as 
>exist in your Frontier and Borah
>neighborhoods.
>
>On another subject - water.  Developers of 
>residential lots should have increased
>water and sewer hookup fees, in the $20,000-30,000 range per lot.  This would
>let the market regulate the amount of new construction in Moscow.
>
>Developers don’t really pay development fees, 
>home buyers do. There are many conflicting goals 
>here – affordable housing, charging fees that 
>can be substantiated as fair and equitable. I 
>don’t think that higher fees are a good idea – 
>higher fees just for the sake of higher fees may 
>not be legal, would create a community where 
>only the rich could live, and wouldn’t stop growth (if that is your point).
>_____________________________________________________
>  List services made available by First Step Internet,
>  serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.
>                http://www.fsr.net
>           mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
>¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/attachments/20060528/98021450/attachment-0001.htm