City Holding Unified Development Ordinance “Drop In” Sessions Around Decatur Next Week
Decatur Metro | July 15, 2014 | 3:58 pmThe City of Decatur sent out this announcement today. Decatur Next states that drafts will also be made available on that site for online review.
Unified Development Ordinance: PUBLIC REVIEW AND COMMENT OPPORTUNITIES
Join us to fine-tune the draft.
The Unified Development Ordinance process has taken our existing development regulations, tidied up their inconsistencies, incorporated certain goals from the Strategic Plan, and consolidated everything into a single, easy, unified document. It’s now ready for your review and comments. Please join us at any of the following drop-by open house meetings:
Monday, July 21st
- Decatur Recreation Center, 231 Sycamore St.
- 9am-4pm
Tuesday, July 22nd
- Decatur Recreation Center, 231 Sycamore St.
- 9am-4pm
Wednesday, July 23rd
- The Solarium in the Oakhurst Village
- 10am-Noon and 7pm-9pm
Thursday, July 24th
- Decatur City Hall
- City Commission Meeting Room
- 10am-Noon and 7pm-9pm
I fail to see the purpose of commenting if the comments will not be taken into consideration – see tree ordinance.
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AKA Decatur Kaubiki Theater
For real. They should do an online Open City Hall topic on this so we can minimize the time we waste giving input that they ignore.
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I also can’t wait to see the detail behind the City turning itself into one big HOA and essentially forcing historic district restrictions on us all.
Building in Decatur is expensive now? Just wait until this red tape is added.
Has the a City posted the draft UDO? It is hard to help give thoughtful feedback on such a complex document without time to digest. Please point me to it if I’m missing the link on DecaturNext.
This process does have frustrating echoes of the tree ordinance- these feedback meetings were announced with less than 2 weeks notice (I got an email about the meetings on Fri-was there earlier notice somewhere else?), less than a week to review incredibly impactful legislation before the public input sessions (if we even get to review it before the sessions), and the feedback sessions held during a busy vacation time for many. Amanda Thompson seemed frustrated at misunderstandings by the public of the tree ordinance proposals- perhaps there would be less misunderstanding if residents actually were given an opportunity to prepare for the sessions where citizens get access to staff knowledge in a give and take learning environment.
I searched for a complete copy to respond last weekend, but couldn’t find one. Why don’t we, the public and taxpayers, have an official proposal well in advance? They’re disorganized, to say the least. Shouldn’t something that directly impacts the majority of homeowners, if not all, be put to a city-wide vote? Your house is approaching 40 years old? It’s (close to) historic! Protect it, especially if I’m not paying for it! This IS an attempt to create a municipal HOA and I’m watching it closely; its passage would be the final nail for me here. Conveniently, it’s Summer Vacation! How many do you want to bet will be out of town next week (my house included)?…
In my meeting experience, Ms. Thompson was frustrated that people openly opposed her (with sound rebuttals). Ms. Merriss’ face also looked dour. Look at the chart trying to rationalize the “opposition” results from the second tree ordinance open city hall session, even though they didn’t tally the neutral respondent accurately as “opposing the proposal, but selecting neutral to say ‘Good try!'” Scrap them all.
I somewhat disagree with comments here on the UDO process. The DecaturNext website has plenty of information and dates/times for the steps and meetings. There are posts related to each section and there are documents to review. You could even sign up for email alerts on the specific sections. I think a week notice is fine for individual meetings, but your mileage may vary. The city and consultants did loosely identify up front how the stages of the UDO would go and when they might occur.
Remember that the UDO is not a complete re-write of the existing code, but more a change in how the code is structured and relates to it’s parts (zoning code to development code to signage regulations). Rolling separate codes into a UDO is like bringing separate divisions of a business under one roof and making sure they all communicate the right way. There will be some tweaks and some additions, but from the meetings I attended it did not feel like the changes being proposed were anything like the changes in the tree ordinance.
Rival, all I could find was a mix of general platitudes about making the city better and cleaning up the code, mixed with some feedback from “public input sessions” that was literally all over the map and frequently contradictory and mutually exclusive.
They talk about making things more regulated and more restrictive but give no examples. They talk about reducing the building height but don’t say to what. Decatur already has a lower building height than Atlanta, and doesn’t allow 3rd stories like Atlanta does.
For instance, they picture a house (attractive) as an example of preserving neighborhood character at the corner of Avery and Winnona (house is from probably 1925-1930). However, this house does not pass the minimum lot lines on the sides or front, nor does it pass the tree ordinance threshold. I think it has some tall shrubs in back but no tree canopy. It is also likely not very energy efficient and is not “green” building. So if you are the owner of this house, the city will put in restrictions that limit what you can do with the house, thereby reducing the value of the property.
If you perhaps have an older unattractive house, or one that has outlived its economic usefulness, the city will also prevent you from making (still unknown at this point) improvements.
Remember that the supposed goal of the early tree ordinance meetings was to curtail clear-cutting by developers as THEY were the problem. Compare that with the final result, which restricts everyone, except developers and those with deep pockets.
Regarding the “historic district” push, having read smalltowngirl’s interesting synopsis of the previous push to make all of Oakhurst a historic district, I don’t trust these people and as WP stated, there aren’t enough details. There’s nothing historic about the majority of these houses, they’re just old and expensive to fix up. That includes mine. Enacting more restrictions will only make it even more expensive and further accelerate the demographic shift.
I called the city to ask how to get a permit to have a tree removed that was laying on my neighbor’s house, but they never bothered to call me back.
Thank you to everyone who has taken time to comment on the UDO process and content. The draft UDO will be online at http://www.decaturnext.com on Monday, July 21st. There will be several weeks to comment on this draft. The series of meetings this week are designed for residents to meet with staff to learn about and comment on the topics that are most important to them. They are Q & A sessions. You may submit comments at anytime through the project website.
The UDO will not create any new local historic districts. Let me repeat that – the UDO will not create any new local historic districts.
See you next week at the meetings!
Amanda Thompson
Planning Director
[email protected]
While it may be true that the UDO does not directly create any new historic districts, it appears from the extensive wording in section 11 “Administration” that it is intended to empower (at worst) or at least facilitate (at best) the Historic Preservation Commission and the UDO Administrator to do so. Here is why:
Section 11.2.6.A.1 MANDATES that the HPC” conduct a survey.” This has already been done, so with what frequency do they conduct this survey? Annually? The mandate encourages and promotes a special interest group to conduct research that will serve its own interest. The wording implies that they should conduct the survey as often as it takes to finally conclude that everything is Decatur is historic or contributing.
THEN in 11.2.6.A.2 – it explicitly empowers the HPC to recommend and practically mandates that they do so: “….SHALL present to the CIty Commission recommendations for historic districts and properties.” This directive wording of “SHALL” shoudl be changed to “MAY,” otherwise it implies that they must regularly present recommendations for local historic districts that residents may not want. (It seems to me that over the past decade most residents in the Southwest quadrant have made it abundantly clear that they in fact do not want.) This wording would only encourage a continuous and contentious process of survey, recommend, go back to drawing board, re survey, try again.
Another issue with section 11.2.6.D.1.a (p11-28) Application for Designation. Please remove the wording that provides that a historical society may apply to the preservation commission for designation. Please make that section considerably more restrictive that ONLY THE ESTABLISHED NEIGHBORHOOD ASSOCIATION OR GROUP OF PROPERTY OWNERS MAY APPLY.
I cannot emphasize this strongly enough: ONLY the residents of a proposed district should be able to request and vote on that district becoming designated as historic! Finally, designation of a historic district should only be approved by a 2/3 majority in a referendum and not by a vote of the City Commission. If a person or group wants to consider an area historic, let them. It’s mostly subjective opinion anyway. But don’t allow them to impose their views by regulating them upon private citizens and our property.
fyi that site’s been updated:
http://www.decaturnext.com/2014/07/finally-there-first-draft-of-udo-work-in-progress-released/