bigredmed1 wrote: Thu Feb 04, 2021 6:48 pm
I guess I don’t get your objection to their concern. The HOA has a fiduciary responsibility to the members to protect property values and quality of life for the SID. You offer no specific remedies for their concerns. If I had kids affected by the added traffic near school pick up areas, I would be concerned.
The planning board is full of people who don’t ever see these concerns as important and this feeds into the behavior you slam by calling them a name which here is a dirty word, “NIMBY”. Why not step back and ask why these people shouldn’t be able to effectively voice concerns?
Ever live on 48th and California? The east side of Dundee that was single family homes, but suddenly became multi-adult shared houses and parking became impossible? The people saw that and objected to further expansion. Is it wrong for the rest of Dundee to object to not being able to park at their home?
The fundamental problem here is the developer is trying to get rich off an apartment block that will affect the neighbors, but wants to do nothing to help the problem the apartment block creates. An effective planning board should be able to bring the two sides to a meeting of the minds and force a settlement fair to both sides.
Do they have a right to complain? Sure. Does it need to be addressed. No. If we addressed every complaint received on every development we’d have no development because we could not agree on what does and does not get built.
The most nonsensical part of the argument to me is that they want to reduce traffic congestion to improve the safety of the children. So, by increasing traffic speeds, the children will be safer. Yes, it’s certainly more beneficial to the children to be plowed into by a driver going along at 30 than one who isn’t moving at all because of congestion.
A subdivision composed of public streets, public schools, public parks, and other amenities paid for by the public tax roles has no right to exclude others from living in their neighborhood. Nuisance items are an exclusion, however moderately priced apartments are not a nuisance.
A developer only has minimum responsibility to make improvements to an area they are developing. They will make improvements as a requirement from the city, like sidewalks or limiting driveway placements, but off the property, for a development like this, it has minimal responsibility. It’s on the city to make improvements, which are paid by tax revenue collected, in part, by the residents who live in a development. When the city approves a development, they’re also approving acknowledgement that the development does not exceed system capacities or that new capacities will need to be built at some point by city government. If the developer was responsible for all capacity improvements, there would either be only really expensive development or no development at all.
A city has people and traffic. This is what you sign up for by living in one. If you move near an empty lot, assume it will become a building some day. Your right as a citizen to tell others what to do with their property is minimal.
96 units isn’t that many. It sounds like a lot, but it isn’t. The little shopping center on the north side of Pacific where Deja Vu is has more than 96 parking spots. 178th Street handles 4,382 cars per day. The intersection at Pacific handles 18,000. 96 more isn’t going to make a significant difference.
"Video game violence is not a new problem. Who could forget in the wake of SimCity how children everywhere took up urban planning." - Stephen Colbert
