Hi everybody, hope you had a most excellent 4th of July / Independence Day!!!

Heads up on next week’s Planning Commission meeting!  The list below summarizes each agenda item and then includes my take on the item and any related issues.

What time? July 13th @ 5:00pm

Where? Provo City Center @ 351 W. Center St. in the Council Chambers.

Why?

• 589 N. Lakeshore Dr. — Lakeview South Neighborhood — Nolan Buttars is asking the city to rezone the 9.85 acres there from One Family Residential(R1.8) to Agricultural(A1.1).     My take? I don’t know the details but the idea sounds pretty good to me.  As long as a property owner is not hurting their neighbors then they should be free to do whatever they want with their own property.
• On 1280 W. from 200 N. to 220 N., — Dixon Neighborhood — Provo City government is requesting to change the general plan map designation from Industrial to Residential.    My take? Too many people involved as employees or servants/volunteers of/for Provo City government forget that the General Plan is NOT law — it is not law — it’s only a recommendation and that recommendation can change at anytime based on new facts, insights, conditions, etc.  Again, as long as the property owner(s) are not hurting their neighbors, they should be allowed to truly be a wise and accountable steward over their own property.  Anything less than that is NOT defending freedom but eroding it, taking it away. And if Provo is to remain famous for the Freedom Festival, then we need to fix the egregious loss of freedom in some of the city’s over-reaching, and micro-managing laws — check out Title 14, Zoning for multiple examples.  And if a future property owner wants to change it back from Residential to Industrial, as long as there’s not safety, health issues, then why shouldn’t they be allowed to?
  
• A new residential development @ 200 N. 1280 W.?  — Dixon Neighborhood — Provo City government is requesting approval of “Liberty Place”, a 57 unit residence.   My take?  Unless there’s some safety issue with neighbors in the construction, etc of it, then why not approve it?  My only question is why is the city asking to rezone it as a PRO(project redevelopment option) zone?  Why not just change it to R for residential?  I’m wondering if this is the kind of spot zoning that Mr. Ephraim Hatch wrote about it in his letter to city leaders and the Daily Herald last week?
• Vision 2030 final document?  The “Vision 2030″ steering committee is asking the Planning Commission to approve their final document.   My take?  Wow, i need to hunt down a copy of the final document first.  The suggestions as they stood back in March were woefully inadequate on the issue of protecting single adults from property rights discrimination.  More on this later, there’s some quotes i want to include here later to illustrate the glaring point.
• Election of a new Planning Commission chair and vice-chair by the members of it.  My take?  I hope that the new chair and vice-chair will treat single adults as equals.  Right now, Title 14 of the City Code treats them poorly.  Yes, it discriminates against them and it needs to be fixed.

agenda items source: http://provo.org/commdev.pc_agenda_071311.html

What do you all think?  Comment away!  Thanks,

Roger Brown