By Roland Murphy for AZBEX
Doing what we do the way we do it, the BEX staff and I see just about every major project in the state, as well as several that don’t quite make the cut in terms of size.
For the last couple of years, at least, nearly every one of them has some component of “resident concern” attached to it. These range from the traditional NIMBYs (We’re not opposed to development, per se, you understand, but we hate this particular project. We’ll probably hate the next one, too.), to BANANAs (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anyone) to CAVEs (Citizens Against Virtually Everything).
Regular readers will note that we – okay, I – generally include some reference to these concerns, both because the growth of opposition as a development trend is an important factor on its own and because companies interested in working on the project deserve to know what they might be facing.
The expressed concerns are usually pretty universal across projects. Someone living close by worries about the new project adding to traffic, reducing safety or overburdening infrastructure. The items that really cause headshaking are the debunked myths of apartments increasing crime or lowering property values. And, of course, the perennial favorite is that whatever new project is proposed is going to negatively impact “neighborhood character.” This is particularly funny when it’s raised by someone whose home was open desert five years ago.
We’re not dismissing neighborhood input out of hand. Concerns raised by nearby residents often lead to design or scale changes that genuinely improve projects. Sometimes, though – often fueled by mis- and disinformation shotgunned across social media – the concerns cross into the realm of the downright ridiculous.
A Straightforward Adaptive Reuse
Take, for example, a recent project planned in Litchfield Park. While it’s just a little too small to make it into DATABEX, it warrants a quick look here.
The owners of a church at Old Litchfield Road and North Villa Nueva Drive want to sell the site and let a developer undertake an adaptive reuse project that will keep the existing structures, repurpose them and add one new 4.2KSF building. Church leadership supports the project. Despite that support and exceptionally gentle reuse proposed for the site, a July 19th article in Independent Newsmedia details the extent of vitriol and, frankly, silliness this proposal has stirred up.
Keep in mind that the buildings will all be retained and that the owner/developer has revised the initial plan to allow the congregation to continue using the space for the next five years. The assembly hall and chapel will retain public facility zoning so it can keep its current use, and the assembly hall will be used as a community center when the church isn’t using it.
Sounds pretty reasonable, right?
Nope.
From the Basic to the Ridiculous
“The Thomas” – as the development is known – has been peppered with so much clueless disinformation one has to suspect NextDoor and its ilk were barraged by a crew of drunken pre-schoolers playing “telephone.”
Someone allegedly went door-to-door in the neighborhood sounding the alarm that the church would be converted to a Pep Boys.
There has never been any such use even considered, much less proposed.
Several residents wore pink ribbons to a neighborhood meeting about the proposal to express their concern about commercial “creep” into residential areas. I understand there is a finite number of options available for ribbon colors, but pink ribbons are so well-known for another cause that I’d expect other attendees might have tried slipping these protestors a few bucks thinking they were supporting breast cancer research.
Several attendees expressed support for the project, saying it added a much-needed expansion to available uses in the area and praising the adaptive reuse nature of the plan and its preservation and conversion of the existing buildings.
The opponents’ views were, to be kind, more far-ranging.
“We’re Not Heathens”
While many of the attendees to the July 12th meeting and an earlier discussion in May expressed the expected concerns and waxed nostalgic about the long-gone era when the area was mostly cotton fields and citrus trees, some other comments were imported directly from the Twilight Zone.
The Litchfield Square mixed-use master plan at the NEC of Litchfield Road and Wigwam Boulevard was a particular springboard for wackiness. One resident claimed he had heard the developer say The Thomas could become “the south entrance to Litchfield Square,” and decried the insanity of funneling traffic for a major mixed-use city center through a neighborhood that features an elementary school and several parks.
According to the Independent article, the developer “clarified in an email that what he had said was that he’d be willing to allow the city to install a sign ‘on the corner of Indian School and Old Litchfield Rd. to have a ‘south’ entrance connecting to Litchfield Square.’”
The developer was quoted as saying, “The point was I wanted to work with the city and show that we want to be a complement to that development versus competing. If that idea was received well then great, if not no worries too.”
Other attendees and commentators decried the loss of a worship facility – despite the fact that the church will retain use of the congregation space under the current proposal.
Planning and Zoning Commissioner Vickilyn Alvey took pains at the meeting to dispel some of more passionate, but erroneous, expressed concerns. The Independent quoted her as saying, “I’ve read every letter and every email…sent to the city. I’d like to just say that we’re not heathens, we’re not anti-God, we do not hate the church, because that has been the tone of some of the letters and the feedback that we’ve received.”
The existing property owner, for its part, praised the adaptive reuse component and the fact that the developer is local to the area, pointing out the site is going to be sold one way or the other, and a different developer would possibly have an intended use that was far more disruptive.
A Modest Proposal
The emails collected since the May meeting have been collected here as part of the record. They cover the gamut from the reasonable to the ridiculous. I often just skim these, but I admit some submissions were so off the wall that I got pulled down the rabbit hole.
The public meeting was continued and Planning and Zoning will likely vote on August 9th.
It would probably be litigated as discriminatory by some dimwit somewhere, but even as libertarian as I am I don’t think I’d object to administrative bodies instituting some kind of scoring system for project commentators. Before comments were allowed into the record, anyone with something to say would be given a 10-question multiple choice quiz with project information taken directly from the proposal and/or staff reports.
Anyone would still be allowed to comment to their heart’s content – thus ensuring First Amendment compliance – but their score would be attached next to their name. It may or may not have a chilling effect on public input, but it could weed out the wacky and help the undecided give appropriate weight to comments from people who knew what the heck they were talking about in the first place.