08/10/2010 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Minutes of a Public Hearing On Proposed Charter Review Revisions . 8-10-10 Page 8 they go to court, they have the court rezone the land to what is the highest and best use appropriate in that community, regardless of what your zoning says. That has been happening more and more around the country. Because of that kind of litigation, what happens is the taxpayers have been losing money. I do not know if anyone remembers the Costco case in Mayfield Heights. The City fought the rezoning of that Costco property which we all go to now. It was zoned residential. The City fought it and fought it and fought it and they ended up losing multi-millions of dollars for wrongfully withholding the rezoning of that land. Why was that? The Court said that because of the location, the best use of that property was not residential. It was in a situation where it was better used for what the properiy owner was proposing it to be used for. We in our field of municipal law often hear property owners come in and say, hey, what happened to the constitutional concept that a man's home and his property is his castle and he can do whatever he wants with it? Well, you know, that isn't the case. You can't do whatever you want on your property. We do have zoning laws. But we did at one time have that concept that when you own a piece of property, you should be able to use it to its highest and best use. The government and the courts have upheld reasonable restrictions on that, but it has become so much a matter of legal balancing that the communities are starting to get away from the citizens having to vote on every single rezoning issue or any change in use of property. It has become a little more sophisticated. We at the Village have professional planners now who do nothing but study zoning in surrounding areas and what's the best use, the worst use, the most favorable use. The Planning Commission draws on them. Council draws on them. Whenever an applicant comes in, we require architectural planners and all kinds of different things to be done. When that is finally studied and a decision is finally made, then it goes to the voters. Now times have changed in another way. Because of difficult zoning issues and they have to go to the voters to get approval, developers who may be interested in starting new businesses are saying, which one of these cities is close to 271 but doesn't have referendum zoning? That's what they are doing. We want to go in and be able to propose our beautiful facility and get approval without having to go out and run a campaign door-to-door, get pamphlets and do all that all the way around. That's the pros and cons of referendum zoning and why the Charter Review Commission said, you know what, maybe the people who are elected - the public is going to have a chance to comment and question - these are. the reasons behind the Charter Review's decision and recommendations and why it is going to be on the ballot that I am suggesting to you. That's the basis for the referendum suggestion.