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Sunday
March 21, 2010 Since 1922 |
ULDC task force wants public involved
By Dave Mathews
Published November 4, 2009 With a lower than expected turnout at its first citizen participation meeting last week, members of the citizen task force on zoning on Tuesday explored ways to increase citizen input.
“We want them to be there,” Unified Land Development Code task force member James Haarmeyer said, and be part of the process to recommend changes to Baytown’s zoning ordinances to the city council.
But in the absence of a “hot issue,” Baytown Planning Director Kelly Carpenter said, town hall-type meetings are likely to draw sparser crowds.
“You have to go get them,” Carpenter said. “There are ways to take the message to them.”
One way is to provide presentations to various groups, such as parent-teacher organizations, service clubs and the chamber of commerce.
However, Carpenter said she recommended waiting until January when some of the task force’s recommendations would be fleshed out better.
The focus of questions from citizens last week, task force Vice Chair Brenda Smith said, was how proposed changes might face existing businesses.
“That’s probably human nature,” she said.
The task force, though, also should have a vision of how the proposals would affect future businesses and the city’s efforts to attract new industry.
“The past is important,” she said, “but the future is extremely important.”
But task force Chairman Spencer Carnes said that he “still had a concern about existing businesses.”
What recommendations the ULDC was making about what sort of grandfather clause, in which existing businesses would gradually allow new ordinances to come up, has been a sticking point for both members of the task force and citizen participants.
The next citizen input meeting will be Thursday at Stephen F. Austin Elementary School at 5:30 p.m.
Other meetings will be Nov. 17 at Baytown Junior School library and Nov. 19 at Roseland Pavilion. Both meetings will begin at 5:30 p.m.
Published November 4, 2009 With a lower than expected turnout at its first citizen participation meeting last week, members of the citizen task force on zoning on Tuesday explored ways to increase citizen input.
“We want them to be there,” Unified Land Development Code task force member James Haarmeyer said, and be part of the process to recommend changes to Baytown’s zoning ordinances to the city council.
But in the absence of a “hot issue,” Baytown Planning Director Kelly Carpenter said, town hall-type meetings are likely to draw sparser crowds.
“You have to go get them,” Carpenter said. “There are ways to take the message to them.”
One way is to provide presentations to various groups, such as parent-teacher organizations, service clubs and the chamber of commerce.
However, Carpenter said she recommended waiting until January when some of the task force’s recommendations would be fleshed out better.
The focus of questions from citizens last week, task force Vice Chair Brenda Smith said, was how proposed changes might face existing businesses.
“That’s probably human nature,” she said.
The task force, though, also should have a vision of how the proposals would affect future businesses and the city’s efforts to attract new industry.
“The past is important,” she said, “but the future is extremely important.”
But task force Chairman Spencer Carnes said that he “still had a concern about existing businesses.”
What recommendations the ULDC was making about what sort of grandfather clause, in which existing businesses would gradually allow new ordinances to come up, has been a sticking point for both members of the task force and citizen participants.
The next citizen input meeting will be Thursday at Stephen F. Austin Elementary School at 5:30 p.m.
Other meetings will be Nov. 17 at Baytown Junior School library and Nov. 19 at Roseland Pavilion. Both meetings will begin at 5:30 p.m.