Adequate Public Facilities – Police standards

The big issue for Monday is that the Council will hear two pieces of legislation dealing with the Adequate Public Facilities (APF) standards for policing. Currently, we require that if a new development over 11 units wants to be permitted, they must prove we have adequate public facilities for a number of aspects of infrastructure. One of which is police. Our code requires that we fund 3.2 officers per every 1,000 City resident. Currently we are below that, simply because we cannot hire enough officers (we fund enough but can't fill the positions). The result is that development cannot receive their certificate of APF for police. There are two proposals being introduced as to how to address this.

The first approach, being introduced by the Mayor, is O-7-23. This would allow the City to count the fire fighters on staff that are also trained police officers, and put us in technical compliance with our police APF, allowing development projects to proceed. I don’t agree with this approach because we gain nothing to address public safety issues except new development. I would also need to know exactly how the fire fighters would support public safety and also receive assurances this will not impact our emergency services with AFD.

The second approach, being introduced by me, is O-9-23. This would create a mitigation section, which would say, if we aren’t currently in compliance with the police APF, then a development must provide funding for mitigation. It lists allowable mitigation, which is grouped as security measures (i.e. cameras or contractual security officers) or social services measures (i.e. funding for social workers), or a combination of the two, as allowed by the Chief of Police and City Manager. The benefit to this approach is it would allow us to receive resources that would address the public safety issues brought along with new development. We would gain something, as opposed to O-7-23 where we gain little.

Public hearing

Also note that there will be a public hearing on O-49-23, which is an alternative to the earlier proposal (since withdrawn by the sponsor) to completely eliminate parking requirements for restaurants. The alternative would allow the parking requirements to be waived via fee-in-lieu, with that fee hopefully going towards a fund that supports improving mobility for residents (if amended successfully).

Ward re-districting

Also, as I mentioned last time, we have Ward redistricting being discussed since Ward 7 has too few people. Here are two maps summarizing the recommended changes from our task force, both of which would slightly alter Ward 7 by adding Bay Ridge Gardens into our ward. Here is map Alt C and map Ald 3C.

Stay healthy and stay safe,

Rob

Workforce housing update

I first wanted to provide an update on O-40-22 (workforce housing), the ordinance that would allow density akin to apartment-hotels in single family residential districts throughout the City. I’ve documented my concerns here previously, and you can find my comments in the paper here. There was considerable public testimony on O-40-22, but what’s clear is that consensus has not been established on this legislation and at least as of now, there are not enough votes for it to pass (though there is only a 1-vote margin). However, the co-sponsors have not pulled the legislation and are instead trying to amend it. As I alluded to in the paper, I do not think this is legislation that can be saved. The fundamental flaw is that it should be a part of our comprehensive planning process, which is our method of building consensus in the community around our housing needs. In order to go through that process, this legislation needs to be withdrawn and be made a part of that discussion. Similarly, my other major concern about adequate public facilities cannot simply be amended into this legislation. Despite what many supporters said during their testimony, the housing density increase proposed in O-40-22 would NOT have to go through our adequate public facilities laws, unless they are building 11 or more units on one site. I am surprised and disappointed that certain staff, as well as those who served on our affordable housing task force, are perpetuating this misinformation. We have confirmed it in Environmental Matters Committee, with our Planning & Zoning staff, that the proposed housing would NOT have to comply with our adequate public facilities. This is another fundamental flaw that risks concentrating development and density impacts in certain neighborhoods and parts of our City, and I do not think this can be fixed via amendment.  

I believe we need to take a consensus based approach to first identify and discuss what our housing goals are as a Council and community. I propose we do so via a work session. Once we identify any goals/targets, we should then utilize the Comprehensive Planning process to recommend policies that would help us achieve those goals. I hope we can also utilize the approach laid out in the 2009 Comprehensive Plan that states we need to take a strategic and targeted approach when adjusting density, while at the same time honoring and respecting neighborhood character. This is precisely what we are attempting to do with R-1-23. This is a Resolution that myself and 4 other co-sponsors are introducing to make it clear these are the steps we want to take and our goal is to establish consensus, not division in our community.  

Quiet Waters park expansion thoughts

I’ve received a number of questions about my stance on the proposed use of the Quiet Waters Park expansion, as detailed in the paper by the County executive and our County Councilperson. You can find details of the proposed plans here, as well as hear directly from the Chesapeake Conservancy here.

I support the proposed plans by the County Executive and County Council. Personally, I think this is getting blown way out of proportion. This expansion of our park was pursued by the County and the Chesapeake Conservancy, and the original owners had always stipulated that they wanted their property utilized by the Chesapeake Conservancy. The original idea was for them to utilize the existing home to house their non-profit business. When the original home was damaged by the tornado that made its way through the park, it was determined that Chesapeake Conservancy will need to construct a new building, which will, by the way, be a LEED (green) building. Most of the new construction will be concentrated to the previously developed areas.  I’ve also heard from folks that this is an “unprecedented” use of public property. Let’s be clear, there are plenty of precedents for utilizing what will be public property in this manner. In the City, we have given a long-term lease to the Annapolis Maritime Museum to manage the Ellen Moyer Back Creek park. What they have done is retrofit and renovate the existing unused building to house their offices. They are putting an unused public asset to use for a good cause and improving the property at the same time. They are managing this property a lot better than the City ever did. Another example is CRAB, where the City owns that property but is leasing it to CRAB to place their headquarters. A third example would be the Annapolis Children’s museum, where the City actually owns that property. In this case, having the Quiet Waters park expansion be utilized in this fashion, by a non-profit as the original owners envisioned, is desirable to the alternative, which would be a housing development. I have checked the critical area maps and this is an LDA (limited development area) in the Critical area, which means it could have been sold for housing, but instead will be utilized by the public and at the same time house a very reputable and respectable non-profit that helped to seal the land deal. Seems like a win-win to me. To top it off, the County has committed to a no net loss policy of any trees/forests that need to be removed. So at this point, I’d argue we should be looking for ways to support and improve the plans, rather than fighting against the proposal so much.

Here is the area in question (the southeast corner of the park, which was private property).

And the proposed disturbance and tree removals:

Stay healthy and stay safe,

 Rob