Multiple important bills will be heard at the Land Use, Planning, and Zoning Committee meeting on Wednesday, August 13, at 5pm. Public input is needed!
O-25-89 and O-25-90 deal with loosening requirements for Safe Outdoor Spaces, including reducing the buffer requirement to R-1 (low-density residential) areas to “not abutting” and reducing required meetings with neighbours.
R-25-167 would allow property owners to temporarily bypass the normal process to apply for a zone map amendment to upzone their properties. The resolution is being pushed as a way to increase affordable housing and get businesses closer to residents and would automatically consider resulting spot zoning as justified. Experience tells us that promised benefits usually are not realised and harms are delivered instead.
R-25-170 would redraw the boundaries of the Central/Highland/Upper Nob Hill Metropolitan Redevelopment Area to includes 58 lots mostly along San Mateo Blvd. NE from Copper to Lomas. What is disturbing is the proposed additional area that currently contains locally owned businesses would be declared blighted or a slum. Also, no legal descriptions are provided of the properties, simply a hand-drawn hatching over an existing map.
R-25-175 would change the street designations for parts of Rio Grande Blvd. NW, Indian School Road NW, And Menaul Blvd. from Multi-Modal Corridors To Major Transit Corridors. The legislation as written is a mess with discussion of communications but no delineation of the segments or roadway to be changed. There is no indication of whether articulated buses would be used and whether there would be difficulty navigating the round-abouts.
Here is the agenda that has meeting information, including how to give public comment.
