Jim says: "Sure City Hall shouldn't run roughshod over you, but why not put the effort and expense into a charter change to remedy everyone's problem rather than just resolve one problem in one neighborhood for one time?"
Jim, we did exactly that. When there wasn't an actual project in the midst, Jim Niland offered legislation to establish the quarter mile spacing requirement so that neighborhoods like Whittier, Phillips and Stevens Square didn't become more inandated with this housing type then we already were.
The City Council CHOSE to ignore this ordinance in the decision regarding the Lydia House project. They also ignored this ordinance with the passage of the CVI project. Hence, the lawsuits. What an expensive way to solve this issue. However, the people involved in this lawsuit felt they had no other choice. They thought they had worked to enact the legislation that would protect these neighborhoods from further concentration only to find out the council would not live by it's own ordinance.
And.... I am not convinced that the new ones that were elected "get it" either.
In closing Jim, the decisions rendered in the lawsuits filed by the people in Whittier and Phillips are unique to these neighborhoods. Other neighborhoods in the city do not have the issues that prompted these lawsuits. That is the whole point!
Barb Lickness/Whittier
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed,
it's the only thing that ever has." -- Margaret Mead
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