CHUCK ELLISON’S FRUSTRATIONS AND THE P&Z

In resent months I have watched closely on only three P&Z rulings. In each case I think that they made sound decisions. The decision that I was most impressed with was the Sebesta Rd rezoning. I did not know much about this effort as it developed. So please correct me if I misrepresent something. But it seems that the developers, through Chuck Ellison, negotiated a deal with the neighbors, while the city staff mostly sat on their hands. Keep in mind that though the neighbors worked hard and in good faith on this and though they did their homework, unlike Chuck Ellison, they do not get paid for this type of work. In other words, it was a situation of professionals negotiating with amateurs. As such the professionals were able to be more forceful. And just maybe they were a little better at using the hand sitting staff to their advantage. But the P&Z, though not paid, are in a position to see many different projects and different options. As such when the proposal came before them they “fixed” it. Really it seems that they only tweaked it to insure that any development that would go in would be appropriate for the area.

I suspect that most in attendance of this meeting were surprised when Ellison got up and basically threw a temper tantrum, berating the Commission for having gone back on their word with these developers.

Two things were made clear by this tantrum. First of all, what the developers had in mind was thwarted by the Commission’s tweaking. This suggests that their true plans were not terribly appropriate for this location. The other thing we saw was Ellison’s mode of operation. If this tantrum is in anyway reprehensive of how he dealt with the neighbors, than it was unlikely that a good compromise could have come out of the process.

This is not to say that he did not have well-founded, if not self-created, frustrations. There was merit in the process used in the Sebesta Road negotiations. We want a situation where the developers sit down with citizens to hammer out good development plans. In fact I think that is what we got with the Sebesta road Planned Development Zone…thanks to the P&Z Commission. In the future, to have better results and to help Chuck avoid frustration, we should insist that the city staff take a more active role in the process and that they do a better job of informing the citizens of their options.

Unfortunately many on the city staff seem to think that they have an obligation to be unbiased in these matters. This has been a large part of several bad decisions. The city represents the best interest of the common good of the citizens. Chuck Ellison represents the financial interests of his clients. Those are two very different and often unaligned objectives. If the staff feels that they have an equal obligation to developers and the citizens, we can count on much more bad development. We must insist that our city staff understand whose interests they represent. We must also recognize the challenge they have in doing that in the face of skilled, sometimes seductive and often intimidating corporate attorneys.