…proceeds to get one wrong. Oh well.
Danville council approves zoning changes
Let’s start off with the good decision: Council approved the rezoning of 1624 South Main St. into the commercial category, overruling the Planning Commission and city staff’s recommendation. That area of South Main St. is already pretty much a commercial area and although some residents objected to the zoning, it was clear that this tax preparation business would not cause any more traffic issues than is already present in that area. David Luther showed his business wisdom by pointing out that the house already had a commercial history. City Council did the right thing on this decision… but I’ve got some problems with what happened before.
First, the Planning Commission totally blew this in voting to recommend denial of the zoning change. The second problem I’ve got with this process is a big one and Adam Tomer zeroed in on it. When interim director of community development Ken Gillie Jr. remarked that there were plenty of other vacant storefronts in the area available for rent, he (and the staff & planning commission) just didn’t get it. Hilda Hatchett said that she had paid over $100,000 in rent and let’s face it, that rent money was going down the toilet. If a business in the city has the opportunity to buy property, they should be able to do that. Adam Tomer said that city staff have no business in basing their recommendations on whether rental property is available, and he’s 100% right. Gillie (and any other city staff who participated in this process) overstepped their bounds on this, and I highly praise Adam Tomer for calling them out on this.
Unfortunately, my praise for City Council stops there. In the next zoning issue before council, they were asked to rezone 204 Woodland Avenue to Transitional Office status to allow Averett University into an office building for their maintenance department. The Planning Commission voted unanimously to approve this, however some of the nearby residents objected to the rezoning. One of those residents was City Manager Joe King who said (as a resident of the area & a private citizen) that “This rezoning will initiate incremental erosion of the neighborhood’s character”.
Nobody spoke at the public hearing, which is a sad fact that people don’t want to get involved. After the public hearing, Council immediately went to the vote without any councilmember making comments. Three councilmen voted “No” without telling why, yet the matter passed on a 5-3 vote. City Council may have discussed this in a work session but I feel that in a case like this where there is some definite opposition, there needs to be some explanation of the votes that will be cast. I’ll find out what was going on this week and add something to this article once I get some answers.
You are assuming that just because people did not speak out at the public hearing that they do not want to be involved in the process. The truth could actually be that the vast majority of residents in the area don’t care one way or another on the usage of that particular building. Of course, the opposite may also be true, that the people have gotten involved in the process before, been ignored or rudely shot down by the minor politicians, and once burned twice shy.