Tax incentives proposed for Fairhaven apartments - Updated

I must say I was surprised to see the strip of land on the other side of the Creek included. I will be asking about that.

As I recall, the city council discussions focused on incentives for development in the urban villages, and this is outside the core area. The Council also talked about incentives for affordable housing, regardless of whether it is located in an urban village, so long as it is appropriately zoned. This areas was zoned duplex or multifamily *before* the Urban Village SubArea Plan, but I never thought of it as a target for dense development. Affordable housing might be fine, if done well.

Lots to think about.

If the area is zoned multi and nothing is changing except a tax break for specific housing needs, what’s the issue here?

Michael and Michael,

As two elected officials, thanks for checking the article and for posting that you are aware and your questions. 

Michael, if you are surprised to see this strip then I feel my article is not a false alarm. 

Other Michael,  the issue here is that change always comes in small innocuous steps. While frogs will jump out of a slowly warming pot of water (contrary to the tale) humans do tend to sleep through small changes until they wake up one day to their world upside down.  The Urban Village overlay was sold by the planning department to the residents as a “nothing is changing” adjustment about 4 years ago.  Now this and next another small change - and their neighborhood has apartments.

Personally, I predict the next non-change will be an “improved” Donovan Avenue with curbs and sidewalks as a condition for someone to build a multi unit building.  Or difficulty for the next person wanting to build a single family residence there.  Or a modification on the meaning of that specific city code on what “multi” means exactly - without any more notice to impacted property owners than this measure has received.

I think the issue here is incremental change without notice to impacted citizens and property owners.  We give to our elected representatives the privilege of making our legal decisions but we retain our rights to know what they are doing and to participate in in public discussion of those proposed decisions.

Where is the neighborhood association in all this?  The MNAC rep for the association and the association president should receive these notices directly from the city.  There should be no surprises.  + Link

Dick, to answer your questions.  The association was not notified by the city.  At the MNAC meeting on Oct 21, this item did not yet exist, so the Mayor could not inform anyone of it.  This item surfaced on Nov 2 - long after the MNAC meeting.

You say the association “should” receive these notices.  Well, please explain the process where this happens.  Is this a normal practice of the city to email or notify association presidents of pending city ordinances that might impact their neighborhoods?  I am unaware of such a process, but you are much more closely in touch.

Following your link to the list of MNAC representatives, I am struck at how many of the positions are vacant.  Why is this?  The Fairhaven association rep position is one of those vacant.  MNAC does not seem like a good mechanism for notifying citizens or property owners.

This is a little puzzling in lower Fairhaven.  The agenda materials include some maps: + Link see page 4.

(Note: There seems to be timeout function built into the links provided at sirepub.  Several times now, using previously copied links, this error message is returned: “The resource you are looking for has been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable.”  If the link above doesn’t work, you’ll need to go to cob.org/sirepub/ and drill down to the 11/16/2015 Regular Council Meeting and hit the link for item 21038 (3). A sidebar opens on the right with links to the documents.)

Page 4 shows existing land use. Most of it is occupied by existing residences.  Furthermore, BMC 17.82.030 - D 2&3 details conditions that make it seem unlikely that the provisions can even be applied in the RT-2 area north of Donovan. (sorry for the inconvenience, you’ll need to go to cob.org>government>departments>city attorney>resources>City Code>17.82.030 for specifics)

However, if any portion of the four lots south of Larrabee and east of 6th, currently in Conservancy, jut into the RT-2 zone, then they will be “deemed” to be included in the zone.  Also, the Urban Village overlay, together with the legislative purpose of the measure(s)(state and local), may indicate that rezoning the conservancy parcels would be a slam dunk.  Seems improbable the ordinance would be applied to the entire stretch of Donovan to benefit a single landowner on speculation of a rezone or technical inclusion. But it doesn’t make sense to me otherwise.

John,

I regularly get hearing notifications from the city through the mail with the MNAC letters on the label indicating that I am getting it as an MNAC rep.  I believe similar mailed copies go to the MNAC Alternate and to the neighborhood association presidents.  This is not the sole mechanism for publishing hearing notices but I cannot speak to other methods.  I also get email notifications of these hearings but there is no regular mention of these hearings announced during the actual MNAC meetings which occur on the third Wed of each month.

I have no idea why there are 4 MNAC positions vacant at this moment.  Some neighborhood associations may not be entirely functional due to problems recruiting people to serve. These are recurring issues for several neighborhoods.  Perhaps Vanessa Blackburn of the mayor’s office might be in a better position to answer this question. VABlackburn@cob.org

Dick, today I have checked with city hall and no mailings were made to MNAC on this hearing.  The reason is it does not change zoning. 

Apparently it does not matter that this ordinance will impact the property owners, nor that it is intended to stimulate and make multi-unit development more attractive by giving huge tax deductions for up to 12 years.

Yep, as predicted, the link to the maps in my comment above now leads to the error message.  I’m wondering if there’s a good reason to switch up the urls periodically, because it seems like it creates a lot of inconvenience, obstruction and is generally BS.  I find it rather distasteful, but maybe I’m missing something?