The New First Community Bank to be located at East Main and Exchange moved a step closer to reality last night at the Evansville Planning Commision meeting where its new site plan was recommend to Common Council for approval with conditions.
The new site plan has a one story building that has brick exterior that goes with the historic railroad station. Members of the planning commission were pleased with this feature. Traditionally, stores in B2 in Evansville were required to be two stories high. The commission felt that the design was excellent and made a deviation from B2 in this case.
There were several other issues but all were agred on by the Bank and the city. The residents are looking forward to seeing the new bank in that lonely triangle of land as soon as possible.
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Mr.Connors,
ReplyDeleteWhen you make comments like
"Neither state law nor the city's Muncipal Code require notice to adjoining or nearby property owners regarding approval of a site plan. Maybe they should, but they do not at present"
That is just irritating because, you saying we dont' have to, no law making us so we are not going to. This is kind of the behind closed door thing( I realize that if we had known we could have come)
But we did not know. Lots of pretty talk when citgo went in, and where are the people who assured us things would be o.k. now? I hope they are up for reelection. Your opening comment makes me realize that you and my fifteen year old son have something in common, theres no law or rule saying I have to do this.... so I am not going to .
Its called respect and common courtesy, letting all neighbors know. It makes it look like your hiding something. I don't have a issue with a bank there, but deserve to be informed.
alwaysapackerfan said, "That is just irritating because, you saying we dont' have to, no law making us so we are not going to. "
ReplyDeleteI'm curious where you feel Mr. Connors (or any other City official) should draw the line?
The Open Meetings laws are pretty prescriptive already. I certainly wouldn't want to leave it up to a city official's personal judgement whether an issue merits a mailing to neighbors, because God help him when s/he doesn't do the same with every other issue. That is why we have Open Meetings laws - not only to protect the interest of citizens, but also to draw that line of where to actively inform versus leave it up citizens to find out on their own.
Incedentally, the Agenda for the PC meeting would have been posted in public view 24 hours prior and would have indicated this issue on it.
I would have thought they would have learned a thing or two from the citgo issue, and from the zoning issues on the west side but I guess not. I think any time you are talking about putting a commerical business in any area of residential homes, all homeowners should be informed. Pretty simply line to find.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of Mr.Connors not wanting to make more work for himself, or staff. Thats how my son looks at the history report he is working on right now, he has all the requirements for the report, but we and one of his other teachers suggested a couple things he could add to make it better more complete, and his answer was' I don't have to, things or fine how they are.' But our point was it would have enhanced the report, maybe getting him a higher grade on the report, but he had met all the requirements so he felt the need to do no more. So know I know that its not just my son that has this attitude, our city leaders do as well. We should all be scared.
The other issue is not everyone has internet access, I have several elderly neighbors that had no idea this was going on. So to say well just jump on your computer and get all the local meetings and agenda's is not a solution.
ReplyDeleteI understand your point but I don't see Mr. Connors as trying to "avoid extra work." Rather, the City is not responsible for making judgement calls on when to inform and when not to inform neghbors on issues. Should we be sending out notices anytime someone applies for a building permit? That isn't too far from a site plan review. Do you really want the City to make "judgement calls" on all issues like this? I don't as that opens the process up for abuse or neglect.
ReplyDeleteBasically, the notification ordinances are set up to inform possible affected parties whenever the party of interest is proposing to do something that is not unquestionably within their existing legal authority as a landowner (zoning, annexation, conditional use, variances, etc.). Site plan review doesn't fall into that category and I'm not sure I want my tax dollars spent on mailings for something that isn't legally necessary.
However, this is something that could be incorporated in Municiple Ordinance as suggested above by Mr. Connors. Then City officials have a clear direction on additional notification requirements that the public would want them to follow.
As far as posted agendas go, I would look on the internet either as the City's site isn't too browser friendly these days. But I am pretty sure they are still posted the old fashioned way - by hand on real paper.
Mr.Connors in his post was the one who made the comment about not wanting to create extra work for them selves. I do think they need guidelines for these situations so that it is not just a matter of someone deciding, No thats going to create extra work. If it was written some where there would at least be guidelines they would have to follow..
ReplyDeleteI also wanted to comment that I don't think is something that is really personally Mr.Connors fault, its always been done that way and it needs to change. It takes someone in a strong leadership role to ' step up' and make the change.
ReplyDelete