City Council Preview – July 17, 2012
I apologize for the late posting of this and for its brevity…
Today’s meeting begins with a Work Session at 3pm followed by a 6:30pm Regular Session, both at City Hall on McKinney Street. Go here to see the full agenda with back-up materials. Here are some things you might find interesting…
STREET BOND ELECTION UPDATE
For some time now, we have been discussing the possibility of going to the voters in November with a $20 million bond proposal for the purpose of doing some much needed repairs of streets in our city. I posted a very comprehensive look at the proposed projects (sorted by district) a few weeks back – go here to see it.
Today will will begin the discussion on how the ballot proposal might look – because there has been the desire to follow-through with a 2006 council resolution which provides 2-4% of every subsequent bond program monies to public art projects, there is a need to determine how to word that on the ballot. Specifically, we need to determine whether the public art proposal is part of the street proposal or a separate proposal altogether.
TAX INCREMENT REINVESTMENT ZONE
A proposal has been made by a private land owner to create a Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone, allowing the owners to invest in needed infrastructure work with a promised reimbursement of their investment through increased property taxes over the years. The goal would be to jump start interest in the area from companies. We will be discussing the pros and cons of this proposal.
McKINNEY and MAHILL ZONING CASE
We will return to two zoning cases previously postponed by the council… One is near the corner of McKinney and Mayhill. The sticking point with this proposal is fear from nearby neighborhoods of development projects that will exasperate and already clogged street. Specifically, there have been questions about whether or not multifamily development projects are currently appropriate for this area.
FAIRHAVEN ZONING CASE
We will return to the zoning change request from the current owners of the old Fairhaven structure, one of famed local architect O’Neil Ford’s buildings. Go here to see my write-up for this when it was before us in May. This is an important case with many historic, planning, neighborhood, and business principles at play – some of which do not share similar ideals. According to the latest proposal, the owners of the building are willing to agree to not changing anything on the exterior of the building without prior permission from the council. This is akin to agreeing to come under many of the guidelines of local historic landmarks. That is a significant step from the last city council meeting – we’ll see if it is significant enough to find a path forward.
PASCHALL BAR
My friend, Historic Landmark Commissioner, District 1 citizen and part-owner of District 1′s own Paschall Bar (pictured above), Eric Pulido, invited me out for post-council discussions after the meeting. So perhaps I’ll see you there?