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WPCNR THE LETTER TICKER. March 18, 2024:
Dear Common Council Members,
As follow up to our March 6th email and the March 4th meeting a few additional comments:
Our current Comprehensive Plan when originally developed was 100% resident driven with minimal City Staff participation and no outside influencers with their own agendas. Abraham Lincoln would have liked our existing Comprehensive Plan as it was “of the people, by the people and for the people”.
With the City Staff’s new proposed Comprehensive Plan top-down changes. . .”the people” who actually live in the selected areas for the proposed zoning changes, are missing from the participation process.
And we really don’t understand where the changes came from and who is pushing the urgency. . .certainly not WP home owners. We’re guessing that probably outside influencers with their own agendas, consultants and non-resident City Staff are playing major roles in developing and promoting these changes.
Why?
Back at last November 15th Annual Gedney Farms Association meeting Mayor Roach and Commissioner Gomez spoke about the new Comprehensive Plan change process and how good it will be for the City. Commissioner Gomez did show his Power Point presentation.
However they both failed to mention the planned zoning changes for Residential Neighborhoods, including Accessory Dwellings, Cluster Housing as well as zoning changes for the New York Hospital and Burke Rehabilitation properties. . .that could damage local property values.
At best the Mayor and Commissioner’s comments were disingenuous and incomplete.
This Common Council, the peoples’ representatives, have heard their constituents from the Neighborhoods in the Southend of the City.
And now it is time for you to act and reject the proposed Comprehensive Plan changes as written for one reason and one reason alone.
This changed Comprehensive Plan includes devastating density zoning changes that would have a long-lasting negative impact on our neighborhoods and housing values. . .and should be rejected immediately.
So please fix the proposed Comprehensive Plan by leaving out all of the proposed zoning changes for residential home owners in order to protect existing property values.
In the first place the City Staff excluded home owners from all the initial fact gathering and research portion of the Comprehensive Plan change process.
And secondly the Neighborhood Associations in the Southend have already expressed their displeasure with the proposed Comprehensive Plan changes as presented.
Do require the City Staff to go back and contact each Neighborhood Association to get home owner input on what Comprehensive Plan changes, if any, they need to protect existing property values.
And get the Staff to disclose everything in the Plan that could impact local neighborhoods.
Also require the City Staff to work with the Neighborhood Associations on addressing and involving residents on problem solving and planning issues on major projects in their own neighborhoods.
Thanks in advance for your involvement,
Marie and Ron Rhodes