06/17/2002 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Regular Council Meeting 6-17-02 Page 10 Council President Buckholtz said I'd like to do something, (if this is unorthodox), but if there's anyone in the audience who would like to speak on this issue, they are welcome to come forward. Mr. Marquardt said I'd like to make a comment. I've followed this quite a bit and I think, first of all, Goldberg Properties have been pretty sensitive with everybody and that's commendable. There are people, of course, who'd like that nothing gets developed there-and of course, that's not fair. You have the right to develop the property there. There is the issue of where the roadway comes and, you certainly have the right to do that. I think the central issue here is the height variance. The folks that are going to be impacted are the folks on Highland Road because they are close by. I have talked to a number of them and we have discussed the 3-story versus 4-story versus the smaller footprint and the larger footprint. It seems to be the consensus that they would prefer to keep the height down and expand the footprint. In my mind, if that's an agreeable thing, I don't know why we are even considering a height variance if that's agreeable to them and agreeable to Goldberg then I don't even know why we would consider it. I would think that we could get the rest of the thing (I don't think that the cul-de-sac issue is-I think that's a non-issue.) I think that would go through if that went back through Board of Appeals or whatever, it would get approved. Unfortunately, they are joined here in one issue and if they were separate, I think if you gave up the height variance, the cul de-sac is not an issue and you move forward with it. That's my opinion on the thing. I think that's the preference of the folks on Highland Road. They feel their property values will be diminished by the higher building. Rick Christian, 510 S.O.M. Center Road (in the audience) said I don't think it's so much just the people on Highland Road, you will be able to see that from S.O.M. - four stories. No amount of trees will cover that 4 stories to get them above the trees. Council President Buckholtz said that is a point well taken. I just want to say 2 things in response to that--although it's a compelling argument, we have a code and we have a system for contacting people within "x" number of feet of a development. They come, they speak out, they speak their minds, then you have to take that very seriously and in consideration. I also talked from a bit of experience. I live on Worton Park where (I don't know-was it 8 years ago, I've kind of lost track) but I got involved in the whole process because of Progressive wanting to put up a 5+ story building, iYs actually closer to 6 and a half with all the air conditioning units. I was part of the residents who were absolutely opposed to it. In retrospect, iYs been a fine development and a great thing for the city. I also want to say--even through Mr. Ilacqua couldn't be here tonight, so he has no vote in this-that I did talk to him extensively today and his opinion was, if a smaller footprint farther away from the homes, he'd rather see the taller building farther away from the homes than a lower building kind of encroaching on the homes more. I only bring that up because he does live up north, as with what Mr. Christian says, he has to pull out and kind of look at that every day as well. The only final thing that I have, and this is directed directly to Mr. Bell and members of Council, is the other experience we have with Progressive is how critical it is to modify and define this Development Agreement. I glanced through it because I figured what we are voting on today is predicated on a mutually agreeable Development Agreement so iYs not so much what's important here as what's-I mean, we'll vote it in title and haminer it out later. I want to bring out one other aspect of it that Mr. Marquardt and myself worked very hard on. When we were allowing Progressive, or kind of nurturing the Progressive development up in that part of town and that was- they were very good neighbors; they are very good neighbors. We don't need to build another pool 10