Planners to Review 9 Housing Proposals

In a process some say is outdated and others say is an effective curb on sprawl, the Planning Commission will review nine proposed housing developments from builders hoping to construct more than 1,300 homes.

But with the city ready to approve only 258 housing units, the process has become competitive. Mayor Sandy Smith went so far as to call it a “beauty contest,” with developers wooing decision makers’ attention with telephone calls, information packets and offers to take them to lunch and dinner.

The Planning Commission’s hearings are part of the city’s 10-year-old growth management plan that sets a target population of no more than 115,000 by 2010, which would mean an additional 13,000 people. That is considered the maximum number of people the infrastructure could handle, said Marion Thompson, the city’s planning supervisor.

To stick to that schedule, the city permits developers a total of only a few hundred houses, apartments or condominiums to be built in two-year cycles.

After listening to each developer make a 15-minute pitch for projects in a two-night public workshop Tuesday and Wednesday, the Planning Commission will decide which developers get the precious few houses, at a hearing on Sept. 19. This week’s workshops will be at 7 p.m at City Hall, 501 Poli St.

If any of the developers appeals the decision, however, it gets bumped up to the City Council, which reconsiders the entire allotment.