Town Council Meeting February 3, 2009.
The meeting last night was great. Standing room only (videos coming soon). A hot topic was discussed concerning a proposed developement and how it would affect another neighborhood. (It was absolutely wonderful to see this type of public engagement.)
I am sure that there will be further blogs, by various of us who engage in that activity, discussing that and other issues that were presented to our Town Council tonight.
What I wanted to make note of was something I noticed tonight that was not on the agenda. There were a lot of people who spoke up at the meeting. Some of them presented their arguments in such a thoughtful, reflective, and inclusive community-based that I could not help but realize that I was listening to people that, if they were to run for Town Council, I would vote for them. Those individuals did the research, they did the work, and they presented their arguments in ways that should require Town Council to take a lot of things into consideration when making the final decision.
Another thing that I noted was that the people who were asking Town Council to vote against the proposal, were doing just that. It was the proposal, as it currently exists, that they had a problem with (traffic/road access). Most of the opponents acknowledged that the development, itself, was a good thing, but the limited access to roads would create safety hazards as well as compromise quality of life for the owners of property in the current development.
I don't know all of the ins and outs of the project, but it would seem that simply finding another access point would fix the issues raised.
I don't envy the Town Council in making decisions like this. The laws concerning VDOT set very specific standards for determining traffic impact and solutions to identified traffic issues. The Town Council is in the position of making decisions that go beyond the mere letter of the law. Since VDOT traffic evaluations are based on the number of residential units within a development, it falls squarely upon the shoulders of Town Council to identify all issues that affect the validity of that study in the real world application.
For instance, does a traffic study done now when the economy is so severely depressed accurately represent the traffic at more 'normal' economic times? What about other developments that are likely to be brought into the area. Theoretically, according to the VDOT applications, it is possible for a developer to do one development that does not have the number of houses on it to require advanced studies while knowing that he/she will be adding another development adjacent to it with a similar number of residences. While neither of these individually meet the 'count' criteria, if they were done at one time, they would.
Several times tonight it was pointed out that the project was consistent with the Comprehensive Plan. Well, maybe it is time that the Comprehensive Plan had a serious face lift. The town has changed significantly in recent years as to population, demographics, development patterns, traffic, and storm water. The most recent review of the Comprehensive Plan a couple of years ago was passed unchanged. Nothing was done to ascertain input from citizens. Since, the comprehensive plan is the legal basis for zoning, things will continue as they have with no consideration for the drastic changes in population and growth.
I think it is time for the Comprehensive Plan to be re-evaluated. And, this time the town needs to make a dedicated effort to involve citizens, obtain citizen input, and ask questions pertaining to the FUTURE of Christianburg. (If you want a look at the type of data that was used in the last one, take the survey I've loaded up online. It is virtually the same survey as the one done in 1998 (and used for the 2003 Comprehensive Plan) with only a few changes to accomodate changes in numbers for population and growth.
If you feel you were one of those people I was talking about who did such a good job presenting your case, and if you care about the Town as a whole, then consider running for Town Council or consider dropping your name in the hat for the next Planning Commission opening.