Just got back from a City Council committee meeting where that darn Michael Barnes – the District 4 representative who is running for district attorney – kept asking some impertinent questions.
The topic at hand was a draft of the Catawba Area Plan, which the planners are working on to address an area in the west of part of Charlotte-Mecklenburg, up next to the Catawba River and north of I-85. Part of the plan’s aim, it says, is to encourage “developments that are compatible with the surrounding natural environment” and to “integrate environmentally sensitive design elements” by incorporating natural features, minimizing paved surfaces, “preserving and creating open space and greenways” and using green design to try to reduce storm water runoff. Excellent goals, to be sure.
Barnes asked the planner, Alberto Gonzalez, to describe what the city’s doing to encourage developers to save more trees and for open space protection. Gonzalez replied that they’d encourage cluster development, where a developer puts houses closer together than usual in order to leave a bigger chunk of undeveloped land in a subdivision.
Barnes: Are we doing anything to increase the tree save on the interior of a development?
Gonzalez: The plan encourages developers to save more trees. … “There’s only so much we can go in terms of requirements.”
After some more back and forth about the proposed revisions to the city’s tree ordinance (the revisions are for commercial, not residential development) and the tree canopy study the council heard about last week (see report here, starting on page 72, see my recent posting here, and see editorial here) Barnes pointed out, ” ‘encouraging’ clearly doesn’t work.”
What he was getting at what this simple reality that many people don’t understand. Charlotte’s plans and policies talk a lot about the need to be environmentally sensitive, or pedestrian-friendly, or any of a number of other laudable goals. They have absolutely no teeth.
What has the teeth are the ordinances – the subdivision ordinance, the tree ordinance, the zoning ordinance, and so on. Until those ordinances require what the planners say they are “encouraging” then we don’t get much of it.
Yes, the planners “encourage” developers to do things during the rezoning process. But remember, approximately 75 percent of residential development here doesn’t go through any rezoning. And remember, too, that every rezoning, even those that are in direct conflict with any area plan, automatically “update” the plan. Sweet, eh?
Even the Catawba Area Plan PowerPoint presentation itself noted that in the “summary of citizen concerns” was this: “Need strong tools (regulations) to implement environmental recommendations.” (To see the PowerPoint presentation of the Catawba Area Plan that was given at the meeting, follow this link. To read the draft plan, follow this one.)
“I suggest we should start demanding more, so this city looks the way we want it to in 20 years,” Barnes said.
Spoken like a guy running for countywide office … But that said, he certainly hit on a good point.