Personal preference trumps established codes

By BOB ROPER

Published Sunday, March 16, 2008

The Crosscreek Center fiasco reached its appropriate dénouement on March 3. It’s over, but just for now. No one would seriously argue that the real estate in question, about 74 acres, will not be developed commercially in some fashion.

What should we think of this? A quick trip through my clippings from various news articles on the Crosscreek development yields a treasure trove of choice comments from none other than council members themselves. Let’s try these on for size: "Something is dramatically wrong with the way the city approaches planning and zoning" - Jerry Wade, March 3. "I am going to concur that this whole process is broken … and we are never consistent in what we ask for" - Laura Nauser, March 3. "It’s kind of ironic because we tell people to invest in Columbia, and yet why would anyone come here and spend money on land they can’t do anything with?" -Almeta Crayton, Feb. 4.

Lord knows the developers made plenty of mistakes. Probably the most egregious was their carelessness in agreeing not to sell automobiles on the property, even though that normally would have been permitted. Scraping the land bare of trees early on surely didn’t help, either. And finally, giving the council yet another amendment at the final meeting was not helpful to their cause. And yet …

One surely does not have to be a development expert or specialist to know the site is a commercial development site. After all, it’s at the intersection of a four-lane, divided highway and Stadium Boulevard. Stadium will be extended eastward in the not-too-distant future to link up with Interstate 70.

Out of unbridled curiosity, I spent an hour at the Columbia Planning Department office to look through the public files. What I found lends credence to what Planning and Zoning Commissioner Steve Reichlin said at a meeting Nov. 10: "We sit here and apply our personal preferences instead of measuring the compliance with the ordinances already in place."

Here is why I think Reichlin is onto something: In their applications for rezoning, the developers asked for category C-P (Planned Business District) rather than C-3 (General Business District). Why would they do such a thing, knowing it meant that the "plan" would need to be approved by the city every step of the way? The obvious answer is they knew they did not have a chance of getting the traditional C-3. The C-3 ordinance is chock full of permitted commercial uses, a veritable road map of what a commercial development could do with that type of zoning. All of which is well and good, except no one applies for C-3 anymore, at least on complicated developments, for fear it will be denied.

After the developer received the C-P zoning, the rest of the story was, alas, predictable. Endless hearings, endless studies and endless negotiation with neighbors, Planning and Zoning Commission members and the city council, all in a fruitless effort to satisfy everyone. The obvious problem is there are no standards anymore, and it is all negotiation. If nothing else changes, let’s at least do some truth in advertising and change the C-P designation to C-N, which would stand for "Negotiated Commercial."

A few other thoughts on this whole mess:

I drove by the site recently and noticed I could not even see any of the so-called "neighbors." I found out later the actively involved neighborhood association on the east side of the site is actually located about a half-mile away. The Shepard subdivision "neighbors" are across Highway 63, and with the exception of one rooftop, you cannot see any of those houses from the site. And yet the developers have to negotiate intensely with and somehow satisfy these "neighbors." That, of course, is impossible: You can never get them all, so the dissidents keep complaining.

I am obviously a naïve soul. My view is that if you own property, you have certain rights. Am I the only one around here who thinks there are way too many people who don’t have a lot of respect for the property rights of those who have made a financial investment in their own property? Don’t get me wrong, I understand discretionary oversight and the imposition of some controls by the city is appropriate in rezoning matters. And I am not an apologist or spokesman for developers - they need to be watched closely, just like the rest of us. I just think property rights should count for something.

By March 3, the developer was conceding all kinds of things, such as the landscaping of the car dealership lot and the median; controls on noise from the dealership; signs; the aesthetics of the development; gross square footage of building floor areas; the height of buildings; percentage of the site dedicated to open space; transport truck delivery times; whether certain buildings will have pitched roofs; the height of light poles; pedways, etc. A lot of this looks like personal preference items. The idea that developers and business owners would want to do a lot of this stuff on their own anyway to attract and keep good customers seems to be lost on the small army of folks who want to dictate to the developer.

Because our zoning process is obviously broken, I would hope good people will get together to try to fix it. We need more predictability so landowners can ask for C-1, C-2 or C-3 knowing what they will get if permitted to do so. A good starting point would be to exhume the Process and Procedure Report dated Aug. 21, 2006.

At the request of the city council, a group was formed in January 2005 to review our planning and zoning process. Everyone knew there were problems, and this working group, in my opinion, did good work. Key recommendations: Shorten the process and end duplicative hearings. The problem is this is a procedural fix only. It will not solve the lack of objective standards for matching land with appropriate zoning and the near veto power of a few neighbors. As of now, we seem to be in an endless cycle where negotiation is the order of the day, overlaid with a great deal of personal preferences masquerading as public policy.

The last time I checked, Columbia was struggling in the economic growth area. I wonder why.

Tribune columnist Bob Roper is a local banking and investment executive with a longstanding interest in public issues.