12/17/2000 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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12-17-01 Page 19 Council President Marquardt said my comments will come as no surprise to Mr. Schiemann because I talked to him yesterday. I have a problem with us fast-tracking a zoning issue. Zoning is one of our most important tools to control the development within the Village. We have had proposals that fit within zoning which we insisted go through Planning and Zoning and all of the steps to exercise due diligence on those proposals. This is one that will require a zoning change and I think that fast- tracking it as is being proposed here is not in the best interest of the Village and Council is to be acting on the best interest of the Village, not on the best interest in obtaining a business objective for a property owner. If those two coincide, that is good but our first priority is to act in the best interest of the Village and I have a real problem putting this on first reading without having gone through the other steps in the due diligence process that we have enforced and insist upon on every other project. That is my objection to this. Mayor Rinker said I would like to respond to that. The record will bear me out one way or another but I would recommend that this Council, as a body, look back to about a year and a half ago when the Council President did exactly what he is saying shouldn't be done which is fast-tracking. That was to place on the ballot an issue to rezone all Village property to residential use. If you will recall, we had some discussion about whether or not there would be some special category use--that was something that went through a different process--it went through the Ordinance Review Committee, it went through the Planning and Zoning Commission and that ended up dying in committee after Council had some discussion here. It went back to the Ordinance Review Committee and was heard from no more. Very precipitously, I might add, the Council President announced at the close of a meeting--a special meeting if I recall--in either June or July of last year, we ought to rezone all Mayfield Village land owned in fee by the Village to Single-Family Residential use. I think about the only precursor discussion was whether or not setbacks and some other questions that had arisen in the course of the discussion about any special zoning category for the Village property came up. Now if that move is seen as one where there was a deliberative process with a specific issue that was placed on the ballot, I would dispute that. If all of you collectively or individually feel otherwise, then fine. But I felt rather distressed at the time and i felt that we were placed in something of a jackpot but because to discuss the issue at that time when the Charter Review Commission was looking at a number of items; there were a number of issues that were rather volatile. I said at the time that I felt there should have been more deliberation by this body before it even went out into the public for discussion knowing that it is kind of a populace issue. Again, the record will either bear out what I will recall as I am talking to you, or not. But I think it is really begging the issue to say that we are somehow fast-tracking something. I think for sure, as I indicated, it would be far better if we'd had a more generalized discussion, as I alluded to earlier, about these kinds of issues without being forced to deal with a specific one. There have been a couple of times in the past where things like this have arisen--when we had doctors coming in looking for a place on Beta, when we were looking at the Hague property. Invariably, what happens is you don't have the opportunity to pick the timing of these kinds of issues. So, what you do--you depend on your procedures and our procedure, like many communities that have home rule powers, indicates that if you have an itein for rezoning, typically the Council will identify it and then it gets referred to the Planning and Zoning Commission. Sometimes it does bubble up through the system on a inore leisurely pace, but not necessarily. Your Charter and your ordinances are geared right now to have a very deliberative process. You can start out by being upset about this, about being defensive about it, about being closed-minded about it. I think none of those reasons is a good one to stop the discussion. What I am asking for, everyone, is to look at this constructively. Maybe this is a way to catalyze the