For those looking in from other areas, the local League of Women Voters hosted a panel discussion this evening on Mt. Vernon’s comprehensive plan. It was the first of two discussions, this one intended to be factual and informational, while one coming in February is planned as a debate. In both, audience members submit questions in writing. The context is that there has been much controversy in recent months concerning apparent violations of the comprehensive plan on the part of recent residential development.

Our comprehensive plan is unusual in its depth, having been developed by a fair number of very bright, thoughtful members of the community. It has therefore been especially frustrating to see it so easily dismissed by some members of our planning and zoning commission, and to a lesser extent our city council. A 300 home development is under way, and I agree with many that it violates the plan right and left. In a nutshell, the plan repeatedly calls for “new traditional’ or “neotraditional” neighborhood design. The development now underway is more or less a typical suburban design. It does make a few minor concessions to the comp. plan, but does not capture the flavor of neotraditional (basically the same as New Urban) design at all. For instance, the streets are too wide and display the usual “snout houses” with the garage sticking out in front on many of the homes.

I came away from the discussion with stronger feelings about the question format than the content. As an audience member you can only submit questions in writing, and have no way to follow up, no matter what a panel member says. This is incredibly frustrating when a panelist says something misleading for all the town to hear (the discussion was taped for local cable access). And this did happen. (This panel, while somewhat varied, did not seem to contain anyone who wasn’t essentially pro-residential-growth, though I didn’t get a clear sense of Dick Peters’ stance.) I approached a member of the League afterward to complain, and while she was very nice, she did not seem to budge from the position that this is the League’s way of doing it and it isn’t going to change. Well, I’m not sure it’s as important for the debate in February. If they have a diverse group, one would hope the panelists will challenge one another, preventing anyone from getting away with too many misleading comments. But for an “informational” session like tonight’s, I think it sometimes prevents citizens from hearing all sides of an issue.

As for the panelists’ comments, I recall a few. Rich Hileman (a retired lawyer on the planning and zoning commission) was true to his recent decisions on P&Z in doing all he could to argue that the comp. plan has little real meaning. This despite the MV code of ordinances containing statements that when the ordinances vary from the plan they must be changed to be brought in line with it. Well, in Rich’s view there’s no definition in state law of what a comp plan is, and therefore the ordinances must take precedence. I think that’s his position. If not, perhaps Rich will post a correction here. (He could be the first pro-growth city official to comment here!)

City attorney Scott Peterson pretty much echoed the same sentiment, appearing to have recently looked for legal references that would suport a stance minimizing the importance of a comprehensive plan. Perhaps that’s a wise move on his part, as city decisions of late have often seemed to ignore the Plan. (I’m not being sarcastic. I would think, under the circumstances, any good city attorney would try to become well versed in case law on comprehensive plans, and would try, if possible, to support the position his city has taken.)

The moderator asked a question I submitted (two actually, but the other isn’t interesting enough to post about): ‘What have the P&Z and Council done toward implementing the MV urban growth boundary prescribed on p. 48 of the Comp. Plan?’ Abbi Swanson, who had served on the Council and P&Z and helped contribute to the comp. plan said that at the time they put together the plan the growth boundary wasn’t really a big deal for them, that they’d just come through the farm crisis of the ’80s and were cheerleaders for growth. (Another major contributor to the comp. plan with whom I spoke didn’t remember it that way and was frustrated not to be able to interject a comment to that effect.) I would have liked to follow up, “It sounds like you’re saying it’s okay to discount a part of the comp. plan if your memory is that it wasn’t a big thing when you were working on the plan?” I have to think that isn’t what Abbi meant, but it sure sounded that way. Maybe Abbi will clarify her comment here, as I was of course unable to follow up at the discussion. (Maybe she just meant that that was why there had so far been no action to implement a growth boundary?)

Rich Hileman said something to the effect that the city has its regulations for development and that otherwise he didn’t know how to answer the question. My question now is, why couldn’t anyone just say, “Well, we haven’t yet implemented that part of the comp. plan”? Not surprisingly, I think it’s time now to think about doing so.

There was a fair amount of not really answering the question tonight. Nevertheless, I don’t think this panel discussion did much damage. There was a lot of focus on relative minutia and legal detail. I think most people can see past that to the big picture and apply common sense. For example, people can consider the question, “If growth is so important to our economy, but we can only grow to a certain point, how will we avoid economic death after we reach that point? And if we can adjust and avoid it, why not make those adjustments now instead of looking to growth for our economic prosperity?”