January 18, 2005
City Council Listens and Acts Cautiously!
It makes me proud to be able to write that headline!
Last night the City Council listened intently to voices calling for more time and serious investigation before they set a public hearing to grant DDA the power to spend millions of taxpayer dollars on advertising and marketing.
The hearing was postponed indefinitely. Councilman Tim Stegman was uncharacteristically chatty when explaining his vote: the powers are very broad, the money is very big, the plan is very sketchy...we need more detail. Gotta love it.
In the meantime, City Manager Kevin Anderson is going full steam ahead
introducing plans to make South Haven a high rise city. Amazing architectural drawings are being shown around for 5-7 story condo developments of extreme density for the Wells/Dunkley area AND for the immediate downtown where the Michigan Theatre is. None of this meets the zoning ordinance codes, but...so?
It will be a heady time at the Zoning Board of Appeals meetings for many years. Let's hope the ZBA folks love the quaint nature of this community and hang tough on this type of land development.
There is also talk of DDA building a parking garage. A *parking garage*?????? (Yah, in case you didn't notice the hordes of people desperately looking for a parking spot....maybe 2-6 days annually?)
Methinks much of what is being discussed, including the repaving
of Quaker Street, new sidewalks there and the disappearance of the
parking lot next to the Michigan Theatre...maybe, just maybe is a concession to entice the very same developers. Not to mention that DDA coffers suck up any/all the new tax revenue generated by such a monster condo development.
They are selling off our town, erecting blight and ruinous development...and we don't even see the tax benefits go into the general fund/city budget monitored by elected officials and subject to public input. It goes to 7 downtown businesspeople who make the cash grab on the first Wednesday of every month at noon. The DDA goliath.
It's time to get a vision of the future. To accomplish that dream we need to rein in the DDA. Please write to the paper and your councilperson and show up at meetings to support this effort.
Posted by Elaine at January 18, 2005 09:24 AM