Friday, March 28, 2008

People fed up with developers who are fed up with being asked to do the right thing!

A March 28, 2008, article in the Northwest Arkansas Times quotes developers who say they are fed up with Fayetteville's planning process. See link below:

Developers fed up?


The real message is that residents of the city are fed up with developers who take plans to the city planning department that ignore the terrain and the existing uses of the property and of surrounding property and DEMAND exceptions to zoning and include attempts to stretch the limits of sound use of the land.

Some clear the trees from property and then go in much later and claim to be preserving the few remaining trees, or worse, asking to clear the remaining trees and plant saplings to replace them under the terms of the gutted tree ordinance put in place after the Kohl's debacle. Some just clear the land and fill the wetland with red dirt or other less-than-absorbent soil and expect forgiveness as a property right.

There is no complete list of land that has been purchased and graded and cleared but left to erode and pollute the Illinois River and White River watersheds. But a few developers have control of several such parcels.

They pretend that their projects will benefit the city. They show far too little concern about those who will be hurt by their projects.

Their projects are for their benefit. The burden of proof is on them. The total expense of their projects is always underestimated.

The city must institute impact fees for all modes of transportation, for watershed pollution and potential flooding that may result downstream.

Existing residents aren't going to benefit and they should not be inconvenienced by anything a developer chooses to do. Some who "develop" as a professional activity are capable of finding employment that is at least harmless to society. Some could actually learn to earn their living by doing beneficial things.

At a minimum, they should learn everything possible about soil and air and water and vegetation and wildlife and OTHER HUMAN BEINGS' needs before coming up with money-making schemes and demanding to be treated with the respect that teachers, nurses, firefighters, police officers, farmers and the vast array of ordinary working people get because of their service to mankind.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

You are too tough on developers. They are just ignorant. Teach them!

Anonymous said...

It sounds as if the developers that had their pow-wow are completely delusional.

"Collins said the cost is often unknown until the developer has already put a lot of money into the development."

Pate is right - that's what the impact fees were to address. Developers didn't like that plan because it would make them pay a share of the burden on infrastructure their developments strain.

And Clint McDonald... saying he made every change requested. He must have forgotten the 1st time he went to planning and they had the same problem with the self storage biz as they last time he showed up. Maybe he needs to keep better notes. Or watch the re-runs of meetings on gov.channel - he wouldn't have been blown away, since he was told from the start they had trouble with that part of the plan.

He had some great attributes to his proposal.I hope he can build on those and ACTUALLY follow through with them.

Unfortunately we've been fed a lot of promises that "haven't worked out" to be "cost-effective" by the time the project is well along. One can only guess that "cost-effective" = "costs $".

Why are citizens supposed to embrace detrimental development?

Anonymous said...

Southsider, if you live in Ward One, which your name suggests, you might remember that there was a big outcry of neighbors against the storage facility. That was months ago.

Whining rich people don't get a lot of sympathy when their bullying doesn't work.

Anonymous said...

Coody made it sound like the planning commission and the council quash projects when only one person speaks out and the poor neighborhoods don't actually step up and speak out. A lot of neighbors in this case are relatively well off themselves and are relatively well educated. Some may be almost as rich as those who bankroll these big projects. And a lot of people spoke against that project before it was denied. It was clear that the developer wanted the storage buildings to finance the rest. Not a good financing plan.
Smart developers wouldn't take in something so obviously outside the type of things expected in such a neighborhood and then pretend to be surprised they don't get their way.
Southsider is correct that the project includes some desirable features. But doing a few good things and demanding acceptance of something inappropriate sounds like a bribe.
"But, Mom, I ate all the food on my plate and threw up only a little on the carpet."