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A response to Jeff Wilkinson's article in The State: The State's Jeff Wilkinson missed a few important points from the hearing on August 21 and implies that the compromise interim plan was somehow approved with a few changes. The facts would seem to be that infill builder Chris Dorsey recruited Robert Lewis, a member of Historic Columbia and respected attorney, to present an interim plan that would set up an advisory committee made up of a representative of the Historic Columbia Foundation, two home builders or developers, and two members of city staff to review properties to be demolished or subdivided. This committee would report its recommendations to City Council. Dorsey claimed to represent 'a large contingent of real estate professionals' as restated by Wilkinson, but this large contingent remains unnamed and unknown. And of course, Dorsey is the infill builder with the most at stake having jumped on the trend early with no background in construction and creating backlash in his wake in intown neighborhoods. Under the plan, these properties to be demolished or subdivided would be posted with a sign seeking input for 15 days after the posting. This posting was presented as giving neighborhoods the opportunity to provide input to the committee. Read the Dorsey/Lewis plan here... While we grant that by presenting a plan, Dorsey's group showed that the growing discontent with infill development merited a response from infill builders and that by presenting a plan, they were able to focus the debate. They also highlighted their general lack of consideration for the neighborhoods and the residents themselves by not including a member of the neighborhood on the proposed committee although this option was included as a "talking point". But there was no "tacit approval" of the plan. Mayor Coble repeatedly called for other plans to be presented, but since the orignal intent of the meeting as stated at the August 15 City Council meeting had changed, no one appeared to present an alternative interim plan. The most cited disagreement with the interim plan was predictably the lack of representation of the neighborhood on the committee. Many neighborhood representatives demanded that a member of the neighborhood affected be included on the committee. Wilkinson did cover this. Items he missed included but are not limited to:
Of note was that Mayor Coble was the only attendee from City Council, and he did an admirable job of moderating the meeting. Read more about Chris Dorsey from The State 2004... |