Congratulations, Fayetteville City Council. You are going to get the hundreds (maybe over a thousand, I can’t keep track) of new apartments that you have approved over the last several months.
I will admit that I did not really know what you were up to until the zoning signs went up in my neighborhood, and now that I know how many were approved prior to tonight’s zoning for Walton Communities, I am horrified.
Besides the fact that you are approving apartments that the residents of this city don’t want, there are many other extremely troubling aspects to this.
You are adding huge amounts of traffic to an already congested area with a transportation infrastructure that is already stressed. (But you will do a traffic study after you give them the zoning. That’s like looking at the price tag after you have already paid.) You are setting an awful legal precedent.
More apartment developers will now be heading to Fayetteville because you will give them a zoning with virtually no limits on density. And if you try to turn them down now, you are setting yourself up for endless lawsuits because you have set the precedent.
You can’t give something to a few developers and then tell others that they can’t have the same thing. That’s illegal (if that matters to you.)
But the most troubling aspect is that you are ignoring your own regulations in the process. You just gave Walton a C-1 zoning with a “limit” of 270 apartment units. According to the Fayetteville Zoning Ordinance, Section 94-227, residential development for C-1 zoning in the Mainstreet District is limited to one dwelling per 15,000 square feet.
The rough math on this is that for the Walton site, which comprises about 30 acres, approximately 90 apartment units would be allowed. But you are “limiting” them to 270. You obviously want this ultra-high density pretty badly.
So how do you deal with the fact that you have approved something that violates your legally adopted ordinance? I only see two possibilities:
1. You are going to ignore what the Zoning Ordinance says, or
2. You are going to change the rules to accommodate this (and other) developments that the people of this city don’t want.
Which is it going to be? I would like to hear you go on record with how you plan to break the law.
I am sending this to the local papers in the hope that they will let the people know that you don’t seem to care what the rules say. If nothing else, maybe we can elect people who will follow the law at the next election.
Billy Brundage
Fayetteville, Ga.
