THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, June 18, 1995 TAG: 9506160155
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 61 lines
Nit-picking has become an obsession with the City Council.
A plan to raze the World War II housing known recently as Riveredge apartments and replace it with middle-class single-family homes was picked over for more than an hour Monday night. Then, action was deferred.
The owners of the property proposed the plan at the urging of the city as part of the Midtown changes in the Vision 2005 plan. The houses would change the landscape around Hartford and Cambridge streets, where deterioration is setting in.
The plan includes 142 lots, a 6.5-acre park and a 4.9-acre pond on the 47-acre parcel. Lots would range from 6,000 square feet to 10,000 square feet and the proposed homes would sell from $105,000 to $135,000.
Certainly this proposal would be better for nearby upscale neighborhoods than the shabby low-rent housing that stands in the middle of several very pleasant areas.
The plan has the approval of the city's planning department and the Planning Commission, a group appointed by the council to oversee planning and development issues. Council members received written material and an oral presentation by Planning Director Will Jones.
Then followed the inquisition.
Some of the questions were legitimate, such as who would own the park and lake. But mostly the questions appeared as badgering. If council members were listening, they knew the answers to many of their questions.
It's important for council members to be cautious. But it's unnecessary to subject potential developers to the pompous posturing that has become a bad habit at council meetings.
Nobody wants developers to come in and run all over the city regulations with shoddy and ill-conceived plans. However, by the time a proposal has been through the professional staff in the planning department and through the very thorough scrutiny of a conscientious Planning Commission, chances are pretty good that all the loopholes and problems have been discussed - and probably remedied.
Certainly council members should not rubber-stamp everything that comes through the city's system of checks and balances. They were elected to ask legitimate questions.
Recently, however, council members have second-guessed much of the work of its paid staff and appointed advisers. They have become judge, jury and prosecutor.
Last Monday night they were particularly obnoxious, apparently forgetting that the Riveredge owners submitted a plan for development that fits the city's 10-year plan.
After facing the grilling they got at council, it's a wonder these developers - or any others, for that matter - even bother to come back for the deferred decision.
City Council members always are bemoaning the lack of development and of new business within the city. But, often as not, when people do come to try to change that, the council treats them with little consideration. Even when you don't agree with someone you can show your manners. by CNB