SECRET SAUCE PART II

I put up a blog post in May about the upcoming legislation that annually updates the number of allowed new residential units in development, by region, across the County. At the public hearing on this issue, I testified that the Council should be using this chart and annual legislation as a development tool for planning because in APFO, allocations is TEST NUMBER ONE, and the wait to obtain allocations is unlimited.

I suggested that the Council get information from the Department of Planning and Zoning (DPZ) going back 3 years, and see each region's allocations usage. Then, in constrained areas the allowed numbers of units should be decreased from those that were used.

I also suggested that watershed areas that have experienced recent bad flooding, should have their own new categories, and have very limited numbers of allowed new units to be built. That way, we have time to witness how the storm water management is remediating for quantity and not just quality, before having too much development all at once in those area. Pace it out, and be more careful there.

Currently, the status of the current annual renewal of these charts has been tabled for further review, and not yet been voted upon. The next possible vote would be Tuesday, Sept. 4th.

I hope the Council also looks at how some configurations are being done. For instance, if a project is exempt from needing allocations in development, then they should just skip to the head of the line and receive them, reducing the pot left for everyone else. I am not sure if this is the way it is being done. It appears that the allocations are being added to the total for those exempt. That is not the right way to do that, in my opinion. :)