Lafayette City Council passed a building code ordinance last night requiring 25% of all new home construction to meet relatively strict design standards meant to provide easier access for disabled residents. This was reduced from the original 85% metric originally proposed. While there are exemptions for various scenarios, such as multi-story , multi-unit developments and homes built in areas of steep grades I'm torn between the notion that Lafayette is either incredibly visionary or proudly micromanaging the market for a special interest. Can you be both?
It's a policy debate, not so much a personal one (As is my forte - my uncle in Denver with MS has retrofitted part of his 1920s home to handle the needs of a wheelchair, so I'm not clueless to the challenges of disabled people.) If the "silver tsunami" does hit Lafayette in the future, will the homes ultimately being built under the ordinance be affordable to most of the intended residents? That's just one of several question that come to mind. Plus the cash-in-lieu loophole is always a fascinating hedge on a supposed smart idea. It is the quiet, ultimate compromise.
Like the concept that energy efficiency should be mandated to some level in design and construction, this visitability ordinance addresses another societal value. Fair enough, it was vetted at Planning Commission and passed Council unanimously. Yet energy efficiency can be extrapolated to affecting the planet; visitability doesn't resonate as being quite so "global" a concern. Design mandates are a slippery slope. The special interest-ness of this ordinance may be why only a couple Colorado communities have anything even close to it.
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38 comments:
Dan,
The Camera article was grossly in error. I have already sent a nasty gram to the reporter. Here it is:
John,
I was astonished to read your article on the ordinance passed by the Lafayette City Council. Evidently you attended a different meeting than I did.
It is definitely true that Councilor Ruggeri spearheaded the effort regarding this ordinance.
However, it was the fantastic work of our Planning Director, Phillip Patterson, who brought the home builders in Lafayette and our Planning Commission together to craft a measure that would result in 25% of all new homes to include vis-it-a-bility features (minus waivers and cash-in-lieu).
Councilor Ruggeri chose to oppose that delicate compromise and at the previous council meeting (I was out of town) convince the council to make that 85%. The council passed it 4-2. That essentially destroyed that compromise, rendering any hope of visit-a-bility virtually impossible.
At the meeting last night, Scott Steinbacher, a member of our Planning Commission, argued to RESTORE the ordinance to the crafted agreement of 25%. No where in your article did you mention the change to 85%:
"Critics complained that the original measure could threaten the diversity and affordability of the housing stock in the city."
What Scott was arguing that the move FROM 25% TO 85% was a major obstacle and would create a major mess, not the original measure (risky as it was) which had the 25%. You OWE him and our Planning Commission a PUBLIC apology as you position him and the commission as critics of the entire concept, which is blatantly UNTRUE.
You also chose to ignore another simple fact. As explained by me in the meeting, Lafayette has 1200 building permits already committed and at present the city is forecasting their use at 75 per year. Simple math indicates that at that rate with the current growth cap, it would take at least 15 YEARS for the ordinance to have any effect. There is NO way this ordinance will have any effect in 5 years. You chose to quote Ruggeri who has consistently been in denial on the simple mathematics of this.
The bottom line is that Lafayette has an ordinance on the books that will have ZERO effect for 15 years and would have been totally scuttled at 85%.
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Now, we can argue visit-a-bility all we want. But it takes available building permits and builders to actually make it happen. If the growth management ordinance is reaffirmed by the voters in November, this ordinance is DOA.
Add to this the subprime mess putting more foreclosed houses on the market in Erie and the risks of dealing with Lafayette as view by the builders, 25% probably equals zero anyway.
Thanks for the context Kerry - I had been in touch with Councilors Cutler and Philips to ask about their opposition to the original proposal; the Planning COmmission recommendation was a crafted compromise worth supporting. I think the timeline before such requirements can be implemented is a big part of the story that was missed.
Dan,
True, Dan. I could have voted for the 85% believing it would never happen anyway. Great press in an election year, don't you think?
It should also be a message as to why spend time and money on ordinances that in reality, only work on paper.
It was also somewhat interesting to listen to proponents of the 85% argue that with waivers, cash-in-lieu, etc., 85% would never happen.
Another fact is what Erie's forecast is on permit use. In 2006 it was 500+ increasing 5% a year. In 2007 it is 400+ increasing 5% a year. YTD the actual is 170 or so.
So forecasting the future remains difficult for all. Of course, based on Alex's comment, politicians are infallible.
Dan,
Just to clarify, the original proposal from the planning commission was 25%, which I was willing to support. It was amended to 85% at the first reading (last council meeting) which I was not willing to support. Last night it was amended back to 25% with a 4 to 3 vote, and this amended version was approved unanimously.
Sorry Frank, I wasn't clear there - I know it was the 85% metric you didn't support. The COuncil's first version was the one that caused some (a lot!) concern.
I'm always interested at how any given metrics are decided. 25%, 85%, 43.8%, how is such a number plucked from the air? With an honest appraisal of how soon and how many units would be affected, is there an aggregate yearly number deemed optimal, preferred, somehow predicted as demanded by the market, etc?
It is these random, arbitrary numbers that also weaken the argument for any given ordinance; it reveals the generic "this would be nice" rationale instead of a more thoughtful, defensible foundation for policy. Or, the random metrics mask the thoughtful, clear policy that will actually only serve a minority special interest.
Dan,
Good question. When I checked Arvada, it was 15%. Jay Ruggeri would use retirement communities in Arizona and Illinois as his examples. Markel (a local builder) wrote a letter to the council suggesting 10%.
The PC settled on 25%. Maybe Frank knows more about how that happened.
I got kind of grid locked at the 18 years. That would be unit #1. If you had applied it to Indian Peaks at 50 a year, the last unit would be built 27 years after that. No way to tell as builders build according to market demand. Done at the end of of 45 years (sounds like a Northwest Parkway Deal.)
And what would truly happen after 18 years and cash-in-lieu...Like watching sausage being made, I guess. No one tries to model this and my 18 year calculation never made the Camera.
But how does someone vote on something that they believe is not going to happen?
Wow, I had no idea that Scott Steinbrecher was planning to speak last night.
I have nothing much to add here, but I would differ with the notion that visitability is "special interest" legislation. With a finished floor three feet above grade, and giant steps for our young children, strollers, etc., to navigate to get in our 1925 house, I've often thought to myself how much random stress could be avoided with a more accessible entry. Throughout the Planning Commission review of this, and to this day, I do believe that a very broad constituency is served, at some point in their lives, by "visitability."
I think that's a great question Kerry - if you don't think something will happen, it apears to be a political "free pass" where you can do whatever looks best to the most people at the time - then your only criteria is your own sense of ethics, or personal legacy, or perceived consistency in the eyes of blogger watchdogs, I suppose. Voting on things that "may" manifest in 10 or 20 years provides a lot of leeway to look good, while not truly believing in the cause.
I'm not saying that's what you did, just thinkihng aloud here, so to speak...Of course, with the infallible public official premise, I needn't worry. Whew! :)
Actually, such scenarios must be the root of so much cynicism regarding politics, even local politics.
Dan, gets kind of complicated, doesn't it. Or what about the mayors or councilors who express their love for the city and leave. No accountability there. The same with any city administrator or department head. Two department heads have left for better jobs in the past four years, the city is better off and we aren't paying their salaries either.
In LN today, there is a letter from an architect. Then there is a letter from a citizen. The resident seems to not want to hear the "in 20 years" message.
As for Alex's comment about the steps. One has to ponder if his house could have been built at all with visitability at all. And of course in 20 years when the kids are grown up and gone, he can buy one of the first ones built. Even now there are a lot of homes with one step entries. As the kids grow, other features come in to play - cabinets without sharp corners, lockable closets, walls that won't get smashed in by hockey sticks, rugs that don't wear out, etc.
My grandfather's house had at least seven steps up to the front door. He lost a leg at 19 before he bought the house. Had three steps in the back way. Somehow he went down the basement steps to shovel coal into the furnace in the early a.m. I wonder what he would say about all this, after he hit me with his cane (which he seldomed used.)
Darn it, I knew I should have checked the spelling of Scott's last name. There goes that infallible tag.......
Is there one house in Old Town that is up to code? That would be interesting to know.
But what's the point? Do you support 25% or nothing at all?
All I am saying is that visitability is not special interest legislation. Saying that visitability promotes only the interests of those who would consciously buy a visitable house at this very moment is an easy way to reach this conclusion about the "narrow" benefit, but that is not, in fact, how the benefit of the regulation will actually be realized.
There are many means to improve accessibility and many mobility and wayfinding issues within the general population. The three-step program for visitability vastly simplifies that problem, but I was practically booed off the stage at the Planning Commission for bringing this up after hours and hours of testimony and debate.
This blog is one of the few places where there is an audience that seems to respond positively when issues get more complicated than less. Just desserts for that would have been having to sit through all those hours on the PC. Mopping up with soundbites now is the easy part.
One can call it a "special interest" group or in marketing terms a target market. Builders have added features to homes over the years to attract and satisfy buyers. Any product developer does that. Especially when new technology comes along. Often the features are options. Or bundled in the price (I remember when a car AM radio or A/C was an option. Try to buy a car without them today.) Try to buy a new housing unit today with a microwave.
That's why there are apartments, condos, townhouses, 3-bedroom, 4-bedroom, etc.
Government gets lobbied today when the special interest groups (tarket market) want to force the free market to do something it has yet to justify investment in, i.e. the risk doesn't justify the means, the theory being those who put their money on the line and risk losing it all don't know what they are doing. So let Gov force them to do it. Sometimes it's legit (seatbelts, emission control, etc.) and often it is not.
But the consumer does pay for it. So when one talks about how the NON-target market will benefit from visit-a-bility, a simple test is would the consumer pay for it. Would a young married home buyer with two kids pay an extra $10,000 for the visit-a-bility features, zero grad entrance? Also run the risk of drainage and flooding problems, cracked foundation, and heaving basement floors. (Oh, you think the builders have solved that one?) That's a true test.
People buy and sell homes as their requirements change. I ran into a well know face in town who is downsizing. Did not mention visit-a-bility as a reason.
Maybe what we need is a Swiss army knife version of a house with every possible feature for every possible permutation of a housing requirement from single owner to retiree. From young family to empty nester. No need to modify, upgrade, sell, etc.
As for the yes or no on visit-a-bility which was asked, a typical lawyer question ala "when did you stop beating your wife?" Not that simple.
Of course, proponents can make it simple and spread misinformation. What else is new?
I'm not going to pretend to know what the correct formula is for "visitable" home construction. 25% sounds far more reasonable than 85%, but even then I don't know if 25% is workable in a real world situation. This is not to say that there is no demand for "visitable" homes, has that been captured and projected out in a quantifiable measure? I imagine yes. So some number of homes with "visitable" interiors and entry slope that could accomodate zero-step modification is a worthy ambition. That the first unit built may be years out does not diminish the value or the goal.
You know, it takes some kind of insanity to turn a simple yes or no question into an impeachment of character. The question was very, very simple. The answer can be as long and as complicated as you like. I would also have to engage in a very long explanation of 25% versus 85% if there were any point in beating this to death, but I do support 25%.
And it matters a lot less than one might think whether consumers are buying it or not. If given the option, a lot of consumers would cut corners on costs imposed by zoning and building code requirements. Presumably there are public safety and general welfare reasons why some of those costs are not optional. Back in the good old days, one could have said that seat belts in cars were just an added expense, cluttering up the interior, that no one wants to pay for (or not enough to mass market). Back in the good old days, you didn't need to be a genius to install GFCI electrical outlets in every room... I do hesitate to claim that the technology is right there to make visitability a routine part of home building, but it is very dubious to peg the cost at $10,000 a unit.
If one of your friends is permanently injured and can no longer visit your house, how is enabling that visit anything to do with a special interest? One could just as easily say that opposing visitability is in the service of a special interest.
The issue is complicated, I will agree to that emphatically, but it will clear the air quite a bit if we talk about visitability as a policy. Both proponents and opponents on any issue can "make it simple and spread misinformation."
I take great offense, quite frankly, that this is constantly the approach taken in these debates. Just because one comes to conclusion, part of their job in public service, about a policy, does not make them a proponent or opponent. I'm not a proponent of visitability, nor am I an opponent. I simply think 25% of new development is good, workable policy.
No insult was intended.
My point is a simple question of "Do you support visitability or not?" involves agreement on more definition, basic assumptions, and projections. Besides, blogging implies the risk of viewing the stuff as being insulting. I could say I was thrown a question as a trap. Should I view that as an insult to my intelligence or a political ploy during campaign season? Oh, that's taken as a sign of insanity. Or my comments are viewed as attacking someone. Give me a break. This is not a place for fragile feelings.
If you follow the advent of most technology, there are major problems and failures. Seatbelts is a great example. Seatbelts failing for children brought on putting children in the back seat. That brought on the advent of car seats. That brought on facing children to the rear. Airbags brought on safety switches to turn them off for children. Cell phone usage causes auto accidents. The unintended consequences are just that.
Ok, if a high priority for a current homeowner is visitability, they can retrofit their home. Or they can buy a new home with those features. Of course, if that was a major concern, why did they buy a home lacking those features to begin with?
My neighbor has a disabled child, one of the worse I have personally seen. Wheel chair bound. Extremely sad. No visitability in that house as the second owner.
Let's argue for defribulators in every home. Everyone should be prepared to respond for a visitor or a friend to have a heart attack or stroke. It should be a legal requirement that every residence have a bottle of aspirin. Every obese person should carry a life alert system to signal for emergency service. Everyone should have a chip embedded in them with info about medications and allergies.
If there is market of homeowners who want to enable their homes to accomodate the visits of disabled folks, it will be responded to. Money talks. My guess is the market will respond more quickly as it is to homeowners that require livitability whether it is retirement communities, 55 or older, assisted living, or nursing homes.
Note there are two assisted living complexes approved for Lafayette. And it won't take 18 years for them to open.
What historically works is to incentivise private industry to move ahead and take the risk. Not hit them with a baseball bat, especially when they don't have to play in Lafayette. The builders can leave town. If you want to kill most remaining residential development, you get nada.
When did I stop beating my wife?....?
I don't see how designing a house that has easy access, would cause a huge increase in price. Maybe a genlty sloped sidewalk entrance to a well designed ranch with an over-sized garage for van and wheelchair access, etc. This doesn't sound like a huge cost increase, just a different layout.
I wish I could ride my bike into and out of my house without having to bunny hop 3 steps. I could use a ramp to my basement, also. I wouldn't mind having a visitable house myself. Also my kid wouldn't have fallen down the 2 step into our back yard the other day. I think it's a worthy cause.
Cy, I can't tell if your tongue is firmly planted in your cheek, or if you're serious. Especially when you talk about wanting a ramp to the basement, and wanting to keep your kid from falling down 2 steps into the back yard.
I don't disagree that these kinds of home enhancements have a market, but I don't agree that it's government's responsibility to force these changes on the market. Unlike public access, where I totally agree with accessability for everyone, home builders should be allowed to offer these enhancements as options, not be required to build 25% of their product with those changes.
I don't buy the seat belt analogy. Seat belts protect us all, regardless of special needs.
Special needs are just that, and by definition, don't apply to the general population. Why must these needs be imposed on everyone? Or, on an arbitrary 25%? Should all cars have the equipment installed that allows a disabled person to drive? Or, how about 25% of the cars having this equipment, whether you need it or not?
What will be interesting to see is if the builders start offering these options on their own as the boomers age and demand increases. There are many, many age restricted developments around the country that offer these enhancements on every unit. And, believe it or not, the builders did it without government interference.
Cyclo,
It's about drainage, grading, soil compression, foundation height, etc. Even lot density, units per acre. Dealing with the expansive soil around here.
The proponents say its inexpensive. The builders and artchitects who have to do it say it is problematic and expensive.
Take your pick.
So ask the question, if it was easy, cheap, and sold houses, why aren't the builders doing it? If they are stupid, they go out of business? Or build lousy houses and get sued?
Why don't they agree and get great publicity? McStain here in town wins award after award for being green.
http://www.mcstain.com/Page-819.htm
Sorry, I was trying to have a little fun there. I think it would be a good thing to have homes more "entrance friendly". I don't think the upfront cost is great to make this happen. My examples are silly and don't do this discussion justice. It was more of a reaction to some of the bizarre things being said earlier. I remove myself from this discussion.
Well, Kerry, I must say that your recent push to keep up the pace of residential development is curiously out of character with your history. But that's another subject entirely.
My basic point about whether this is special interest legislation has nothing to do with the fact that I seriously doubt the $10,000 price tag per unit attached by (ahem) a special interest that you happen to like in this case. But to make sure it's clear for those who didn't follow all ten hours, give or take, of Channel 8 time on this, and the many accompanying pages, the question of cost was investigated in some detail. No one disagrees that it might involve a few more brain cells in design, a few more bucks in labor and materials, and a few tradeoffs in design, but there was plenty of testimony by people in a position to know that the cost in probably closer to a flyswatter than a baseball bat. If you're a proponent or opponent, you can subscribe to one of these extremes; the truth is likely to be somewhere in the middle (staff estimated $1,000-2,000, with which I concur).
In many contexts, one can justifiably mock the culture of regulating everything, but, at the same time, not everything we do in government is about special interests. Those are two different points. Sometimes, often, special interests will align with and push (or oppose) legislation; this does not necessarily make the legislative purpose totally subservient to special interests. As you know, there's just not enough temptation for local politicians to be so easily corrupted. Usually, a local politician might see advantage in aligning with a special interest so that they could toot their own horn. I've certainly seen that happen...
Kerry, you're obviously being facetious in proposing that each house be required to have defibrillator, but I do doubt that such a measure would be deemed special interest legislation. Say what you will about 25%, 85% or the concept as a whole, the special interests were pretty easy for me to ignore in this case, since it was never about them.
I couldn't disagree more, Alex.
If it wasn't about special interests, how did this topic even come up? There is no huge cry from the public for this. No city-wide vote. You may not have considered it special interest when you voted, but it is.
It's all about special interests. Look at the subjects posted on this blog. The subjects that get the most postings involve some special interest or another.
Lifebridge, Open Space, affordable housing, etc.
Most voters not only don't know about many of these items and what's happening at city hall, but they basically don't care. Sure, they'll vote, and campaigns will give them half truths upon which to base their decisions.
The average guy on the street is just trying to provide for his family and make it through life with little or no problems. Consequently, most items brought to the city's attention that don't involve managing the city on a daily basis involve some sort of special interest.
Question: how many of us know who built our house and hate the builder? If you bought your house new, one would think you liked it enough to trust the guy who built it? If you were a later owner, I sure hope had a structural engineer check it out.
If you bought your home new or as a resale, some builder spent the big bucks to go through all the approvals, borrow the money, build the infrastructure, finance and build the house, etc. As a buyer, you must hate the guy. He's a builder (except Bob the Builder, he's OK.) If you bought it without features you wanted.....
What also got lost in the discussion is that the politicos may consider a certain group a "special interest" group. But if one is working in private enterprise, that group is a target market. No surprise senior citizens are special interest groups to the pols but are target markets to drug companies, insurance companies, etc. - tons of ads on TV. Lots of money to be made with the aging population and the demographic shift. Visitability will come if the market is there and money to be made.
My seat belt analogy was to show that there were plenty of problems with it and it has taken years to solve a lot of them. Government edict only begins the process. Airbags the same. Visitability construction issues are the same. (Raise your hands if you heard the term a year ago.)
And here we go again with the twist of me being pro-development. Must be a lawyer in the blog. Outside of the simple fact that the city needs the money and disposable income in town, the cap was at 200 a year, not the current projection of 75. 200 was deemed a slow healthy growth rate.
The same folks who tout affordable housing, especially single family townhouses or houses, forget that the program is run on Math, a percentage of permits per builder. The domino effect is 10% of zero equals zero. So push the builders out of town and one gets nothing - no PA or MA homes and no visitability. Zippo, nada.
In the computer business we call this vaporware. Anyone know what the term is for public policy that produces nothing?
Oh, open space tax revenue is based on a percentage of retail sales. 200 families per year not living in town per year is a lot of lost sales tax revenue.
While we sit at 30 or 40 homes being built, even Erie is at 140 this year.
And it may surprise you that the General Fund has been subsidizing the Open Space Funds for years now (interesting how it works). That's finally going to change a little this year. If it had been done right, we may not be asking to borrow $500,000 for a changing room at the Rec Center or $5M to fix the roads.
So we approve one ingredient at a time and eventually several mix and it explodes in unintended consequences. Then we scratch our heads and wonder why.
Wish this stuff was easy as is tunnel vision. Never is.
(Baseline was backed up over 1/2 mile east today at 5:30 p.m.) Surprise?
Noting that we're now 20,000 miles away from discussing the merits of the visitability ordinance, with no one wanting to take ownership of the issue as a proponent or opponent, I'll try this one more time.
Is open space special interest legislation? Is an annexation?
Just because small groups of people are the limit of what will muster behind any issue in the rush of modern life doesn't mean that only small groups are affected... In my book, special interest legislation would be an ordinance specifically designed to benefit one group (and, in the classic case, it would do so at the expense of the public or by confiscating the benefit of some other special interest).
Let's go as far as to assume that Lafayette has just been the battlefield for Concrete Change, Inc. versus the HBA, with city staff and politicians serving as nothing more than clueless pawns in their game. While the facts and analysis might allow reasonable people to form the opinion that this was the limit of what was at work, I know in my own case that the rhetoric and agenda of both sides were plain enough, but neither was decisive. A compromise was forged. In a system where competing special interests are allowed and expected to participate, when does compromise legislation cease to be regarded as serving one interest or another?
Almost any civil rights legislation, for example, could be regarded as serving special interests. Accessibilty has been promoted as civil rights enforcement since before the ADA ratified that view on a national, constitutional level.
While I appreciate the contrasting view, Doktorbombay, I think you probably understand that there is almost no boundary to what can be called special interest legislation if rousing significant numbers of an apathetic, overloaded, and/or disengaged public is the only criterion. More definition of what constitutes special interest legislation is needed.
Is visitability special interest legislation or isn't it? I disagree that the benefit is limited to those confined to a wheelchair or any such limited application, since stairs are a well-known mobility and safety problem for a much broader population. I also disagree that consumer preferences at present are representative of what would happen if more awareness and innovation went into the product, I believe people would like it if done well, above and beyond any benefit to their family and friends.
And the way out of analysis of who benefits and who doesn't, which is really just tedious and subjective, is to ask oneself what is not special interest legislation. If you don't understand the other categories in any census, or don't acknowledge their existence, then classification is meaningless.
The opposite of special interest legislation, in my opinion, is public interest legislation. If the public interest did not extend into the provision of safe housing stock, consistent with the needs of the community, we wouldn't have relevant provisions in subdivision, zoning, or building codes. If the public interest did not include accessibility, we would not have legislation to move industry in that direction.
Regulation is not always a baseball bat. I would have opposed visitability if it had not included appropriate relief mechanisms - but that was included. And sometimes regulation interferes with the market, sometimes regulation is ill crafted to achieve its intent, a lot of legislative clutter is out there; but that hasn't been my interest in this discussion, nor is it my opinion of the ordinance we're talking around. Whatever your opinion of the merits, whatver the role of special interests in the legislative process, visitability is fundamentally public interest legislation.
Kerry, I believe 75 permits per year is a conservative number being used for budget purposes, to begin moving the city toward other revenue sources. Is this understanding correct? There are projections and then there is the cyclical reality of the housing and real estate market. I'm sure the only thing that will be true is that 75 permits will not be the exact number of permits pulled in any year.
By the way, "twisting" is what I call someone who slings insults at lawyers because they don't know any better way to defend their view. It's taught in Knee-Jerk Public Relations 101, I believe. If a lawyer or anyone else hits you with your own apparent contradictions, why don't you correct the situation or tell us how your thinking has evolved? Remember, this is "not a place for fragile feelings."
I have never known you to be anything but unsympathetic to residential development, or any development at all for that matter. If you all of a sudden can't wait for Domenico farm to be developed because otherwise you just feel so bad, which is basically what I heard the other night, I'm all ears...
Alex,
We have probably exhausted the discussion on special interest. Since the practice of marketing seems somewhat foreign here, no reason to pursue it.
Trying to link visitability to civil rights which is a Constitutional guarantee is too much a stretch for my tired mind today. Somehow I can't twist my brain around relating blatant discrimination due to gender, color, and creed as similar to that of two-story homes with staircases.
As for the compromise to 25%, from what I have learned, that has as much chance at changing reality as one with North Korea. The future will tell on that one too. At least the builders aren't in the nuclear weapons business and didn't demand food and oil in return. (I know why they came to the table - nothing to do with visitability).
At the moment, 75 budgeted permits is probably high. We are running below that rate today and the subprime mess hasn't played out yet. I continue to challenge the city admin to demonstrate that their revenue forecast isn't overstated. The tendency is to forecast 2008 using 2007 projections as the base. The workshop this week was supposed to have gotten into it. It never did. Maybe next time.
I thought the Domenico comment might be somewhat subtle but I couldn't resist. I threw it in at the end. Proponents of Lowes argued that Chuck Waneka deserved his due and being anti-Lowes was denying him his birthright to annex and sell his land to them. Approving the 85% would have effectively done the same thing to Joe Domenico (who annexed in for a residential development) and other similar property owners. We'll see if and when Joe can find a buyer or developer at 25%. The oxymoron is obvious but happens all the time. Surprised you missed it.
Having worked with lawyers over the years, they have explained to me that if you can't unsettled them with the facts, insult them to death and maybe they'll cave. Lawyer 1.01 they tell me.
And of course you tried it again:
"I have never known you to be anything but unsympathetic to residential development, or any development at all for that matter."
Factually untrue and you know it. Must be the Lawyer 1.01 in you. Or maybe Lawyer 1.02 - "distort the facts."
Gee, and no one picked up on how we are putting funding public safety, public works, the library, the rec center, etc. at risk in favor of Open Space. Thud.
The case law on accessibility as civil rights is a mile long, so this isn't something I'm making up. If you think there is some distinction between accessibility and visitability, let's hear it.
The invitation to explain yourself is open. So you've explained the Domenico comment, which I'd say is anything but obvious if it supposed to be ironically analogous to property rights arguments made in favor of Lowe's. But okay...
Now I'm dying to hear about your sympathies for residential and commercial development. Please explain. The conventional wisdom, upon which almost everyone who watches council agrees, is that you hate all development. And I can't say I know of any example that would have made me aware otherwise.
And, like I said, the insults to lawyers are basically a feeble resort to name-calling. I stick to the straight-and-narrow when it comes to facts, but if you think I distort them, correct me, don't accuse me of being a lawyer.
Alex says, “Whatever your opinion of the merits, whatever the role of special interests in the legislative process, visitability is fundamentally public interest legislation.”
This is a statement of your opinion, not fact. And, I respectively disagree.
I don’t agree this serves the public interest. I’m fully in favor of ADA requirements for accessibility in public places. But, this legislation is not about public places, we’re talking private homes. There is no public interest served by my private residence being accessible to people with special needs. By extension, there is no public interest served by requiring new construction of private residences to be accessible. This should be an option available to those willing to pay for them.
Please post anti-open space rants, accusations, and "fact" distortions under an open space topic. Thank you.
Doktorbombay, I understand your argument, and, though I believe the political scientists might not qualify visitability as special interest legislation based on that analysis, we can agree to disagree. From my view, the point you are making has as much to do with the efficacy of the regulation as its intent. In other words, maybe serious analysis would show that visitability is cost-benefit justified only to those who reside in a visitable home and only if their mobility needs were of a certain magnitude or character.
My hypothesis would be otherwise (esp. given my belief that cost is not more than $2,000), but I am unaware of any study that shows a clear result one way or another. So, yes, it is ultimately an opinion.
RE: "Gee, and no one picked up on how we are putting funding public safety, public works, the library, the rec center, etc. at risk in favor of Open Space. Thud."
I think the thud is only happening inside your own mind. I will say it once again, check other threads for this, OS funding IS seperate from the other funding for public works, library, rec center, etc. Talk about trying to confuse people with misinformation! This has nothing to do with this discussion, either.
No, cylco/anon. Not worth explaining here. But it is interesting to point out how inconsistent the same logic is when applied to different topics. Just empirical analysis. Also how the minds close depending one's view of a specific topic. Irritating I know.
Visit-a-bility gets mixed up with live-a-bility. The age group gets altered from young to old depending on the conversation too.
Being a card carrying AARP member and in that growing dominating demographic, it's nice to know how much empathy and concern we can count on to change everyone's lives to our benefit. My voting block is working to clobber your voting block. Next your paychecks - "Long Live Social Security".
But quite frankly, I'm not the kind who wants to dictate to others to change their lives and spend their money to accomodate me. If I can't have access to your home or have you help me in, the local coffee shop or my home will have to do. Your call. But I am not going to use the government to make you do it.
Most if not all structural building codes are there to make homes safer or to protect the homeowner from shoddy building practices. In some ways they protect the builder too.
And here we go again:
"The conventional wisdom, upon which almost everyone who watches council agrees, is that you hate all development."
So I guess Alex has polled almost everyone in city, has that data, and has a handle on conventional wisdom. So Alex, are you going to campaign on turning the Thomas Open Space Organic Farm into a housing development? I had a major hand in making it what it is today, stopping the 110 unit development.
Let's move on. Come on, Dan. How about some fresh organic topics to chew on?
I'm always ready to admit a mistake. Meanwhile, it's up to you, Kerry, to continue to refine the artful dodge or live up to your own alleged standards for laying out the facts. Still waiting for that example.
Example of what? Read the votes for the past 4 years.
OK, here are some "concrete" proposals that could make visit-a-bility more likely in actual units built with the feature or refurbs in less than 18 years. The voters are asked to approve one of these:
1. Raise the city retail sales tax by one tenth of 1% to creat an incentive fund for units to be built with visit-a-bility that are already in the pipeline or refurbs.
2. Alter the OS sales tax ordinance so that a defined amount is put into a refurb fund with no increase in the sales tax.
3. Builders can opt out of supplying some PA or MA "affordable" with a number of visit-a-bility featured units.
4. Units with visit-a-bility features get fee waivers of $2000 each. (The city can't afford it but what the h***)
Please add to the list. Or pick one or more of the above or none.
Have fun. Time to get real.
I done been schooled on how to have my cake and eat it too...
But seriously, Kerry, after slicing and dicing how-you-say versus how-you-vote on both SuperWalMart and the Waneka/Lowe's annexation, I'm just not going to put much stock in the voting record. Nevertheless, maybe I'm wrong and maybe there is an ounce of respect in your essentially ministerial actions on recent plats and site reviews that reflects some respect for the PC review that's come before. That is, as long as there were no lawyers involved. Fine.
The major omission from your list above, which of course presumes a lot about the relative importance of visitability (did anyone here say it had to happen tomorrow?), is in possible changes to the growth management system, to incentivize visitability. Obviously, if visitable units were just plain and simple exempt from permit allocation, then a devleoper might well find it worth their while to buy their way to the front of the line with a little extra design for vistability. A similar tactic might be to enact some sort of sunset system for allocation priorities, which would move newer permits through the process at some sort of increased pace.
Another approach would be to tweak the visitability ordinance to broaden the definition of visitability or allow a tradeoff between zero-step and interior features. Maybe if a developer wanted to do one less zero-step entry, they could offer three more houses with the interior features...
These are just ideas. In my opinion, the 18 year analysis may be as true as any other guess on when the units will hit the market, but it is both the product of projecting forward from the current real estate slump and the artifact of the growth management system. Realistically, there is little we can do to speed up the recovery (once things stop getting worse) of the real estate market, and the decision was made not to try to apply the ordinance to existing platted lots. The final way to speed things up would be to change the rules on applicability, but I believe that decision on applicability is something no one wants to touch.
On your list, number 3 is a potentially good idea. Worth exploring at least.
And, just in case it needs to be said, the attack on OS funds is completely off-base. POST and Legacy would be repealed and completely reenacted to implement your plan, so it is not really a modification of any existing tax structure but a completely different distribution under a completely different tax. Put it on the brainstorming list, but then cross it off quickly if you want to acquire any property for open space, much less expensive last-minute buy-outs of entitled development property like Thomas OS.
Once again you got it wrong on W*M. I voted to negotiate with them. Most of the content on the city website was written or edited by me.
But the deal brought before the council was and still is a mess. There does not exist even today a model of the deal. (I tried twice to get the city admin to put the words "Wal-Mart Deal" on the issues chart for the next budget workshop and he couldn't bring himself to do it.)
The deal could have been structured differently and I have confirmed that. In fact none of your suggestions to D-K on primary employees were ever consider and the city gov did not want to go there.
As for Lowes, now we will see. Make your support of it one of your primary platforms. I only wish it was a construction site right now.
Those suggestions are laudible. After four years of trying, the city gov will not implement any sort of analysis in any way.
I put the open space tax alternatives on the list for completeness. One way to test commitment to visitability in terms of actual bucks.
The rationale in incentivising builders is to have them come forward voluntarily to alter their approved plans. I'd be surprised if any of them after saying they had found a way for some of the 1200, they would be sent packing.
But along those lines, if one is suggesting and rightly so that the city has to do a more complete job of analysing the effect of primary employers, etc., should that also extend to the effects of ordinances on development, another revenue stream? Not done today.
I am not a fan of the government mandating this kind of stuff, but the visit ability thing is a bit interesting.
Since it appears to be here anyway, I like Kerry's #3 combined with Alex's suggestion.
Regarding Lowes, is the city locked into Lowes? It is my understanding that Lowes hasn't even officially decided to come to Lafayette. I read that Cabela's is looking to expand. A Cabela's would look a lot nicer on that spot than a Lowes and provide something unique in East BoCo. I'm not suggesting that Cabela's would be interested; just wonder about the what if.
Lowes is in the driver's seat.
Of course, with the subprime mess escalating and more and more of East BoCo in foreclosure and building dropping, maybe they may wait a while. Home Depot isn't doing too good either. Recession scares on the horizon too after today.
With Hwy 7 in more gridlock these days, it wouldn't hurt for Lowes to take their time.
Thx for focusing on potential vis..
options. It helps make the point that other ideas are worth exploring.
Moving on, I'd like to see Dan post Boulder's cancelling of the League of Women Voters Candidates Forum.
In case it's a question, Lowe's has an approved sketch plan, and preliminary plan and site/architectural review seems to be in the works.
A sure way to "prove" there is a need for visitability features is to incentivize builders.
Allowing them to buy their way to the head of the development line, or to trade affordable units for visitability units, might cause more visitability units to be built, and sooner. But, it still doesn't prove the need for these features.
And, trading affordable units for visitable units totally discounts the need for affordable housing. I guess you can have just so many units for special needs.
The ink is barely dry on the legislation, and we're devising ways to make it work? I know it's all "what if", but I find it humorous, and proof it should never have passed. Or, at least, there wasn't enough thought put into the process.
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