As a member of the Planning & Zoning Commission, I have had the opportunity to work with City Staff and to advise City Council on the creation of the Middle Housing (MH) zoning designation and the High Occupancy Housing (HOO). We also recently voted to add the Housing Action Plan to the Comprehensive Plan. All of these work together to provide for more density in certain areas of town and create opportunities for the creation of more affordable housing. This is just the starting line! Now that we have a framework to work from, we need to capitalize on this momentum and organize group of decision makers from finance, higher education, real estate, community services and local non-profits. I will work to get the right people to the table.
Affordable Housing
Land is in short supply and one area in which the City could be more environmentally conscience and encourage more dense development is to remove the City mandated parking requirements for commercial projects. We have vast parking lots that are only marginally used. This creates unnecessary heat islands and encumbers valuable land to a useless purpose. Developers will ensure adequate parking as it is in their interest to do so.
Development Regulations
The City has a Thoroughfare Plan that lays out the current and future planned road system in our town. Roads are classified by capacity and size. Our growth has occurred at a faster rate than we could have reasonably anticipated and this has left our roads congested. It would be my position that the City prioritize and accelerate the construction of new connections to provide more alternate routes.
Traffic Concerns
It is not campaign rhetoric to say it is my strong belief that this was a raw deal. I was one of two citizens that addressed the Council on the evening of August 25, 2022 to stand against the purchase. WTAW ran the following story on September 1, 2022 and you can hear part of my comments in the audio:
You can also access the full Council discussion in Channel 19’s archives.
