It has been said Met. Council ostensibly drew a line in the sand. If an arbitrary deadline is unmet, there will be no plan amendments allowed, no grants.
Grants that have unnatural strings attached are no big loss, but that purported Met Council position, if seriously intended as anything besides a bluff, is something I would hope might trigger a dialog at the meeting between Bill Goodrich and John Dehen of what the meaning of "arbitrary and capricious" means in the context of administrative action.
Moreover, and this is what really makes me feel unhappy and coarsely used, nowhere in the numerious sessions I attended month-after-month, was there any suggestion by anyone to plan to exceed Met Council's quota/demand which was disclosed to citizens as 13,650 housing units, total, to be planned for 2030.
Inexplicably, someone wrote this draft plan to embody 15,736 housing units for 2030, exceeding, for no good reason, the quota by 2086 units.
That made me go ballistic.
I went to every Ramsey3 and later session, yet I do not recall anyone ever saying putting more units in the plan than required was either wise or contemplated by most members of the community.
Not just that it would have been viewed as a bad idea if discussed, but it never saw the light of day at any single session. Apparently the Easter Bunny or the ghost of Long John Silver or the Lone Ranger and Tonto working together came up with that idea, and channeled it into the draft item, somehow, some way.
How and why and who did that to unsuspecting citizens, is as big a mystery as what would John Galt say, or who shot J.R.
Some of us voters and citizens in discussing afterward how we'd been completely flummoxed and were flabbergasted, and how we don't know how it was decided and were surprised as hell to see it for the first time on a visual image, at the Planning Commission, when the consultant made his presentation with something of a glib glide-and-slide with that image; some of us felt strongly that a breach of trust had happened.
Later at the Planning Commission, the consultant said in response to my question, it would permit amending down the Town Center quota as presently envisioned, without need for any compensating change elsewhere, if we exceeded the quota.
I cannot recall one single person ever suggesting such a step be done in the many sessions built into the process. Furthermore, this is 2030 we are talking about. Realistically, if the City is sensibly patient we can foresee the market rebounding at some point between now and 2030 so that Town Center as envisioned can be built out to completion and units sold off per its already allocated allotment of dense housing units. This was an unneeded gratuitous change no large number of citizens expected nor want.
Here's the slide we'd seen before (as always click to enlarge and read):
The red line is fit for an original higher quota. The blue line, we thankfully were told and believed, was all Ramsey had to deliver.
Here is the newbie:
Note the yellow line. Clearly little thought went into it.
It was simply put there with an excessively high ending number in mind, and a straight line drawn between it and the present number.
That is not planning.
It is far, far less than planning.
It is arbitrary and capricious and unnecessary and not required to meet Met Council expectations.
Again, this "Well we just went and put in more than required" slide, was the first notice given citizens of that "thinking" at any meeting or session, revealed only then at the 11th hour before the Planning Commission.
Initial notice given this way, that decision, that expanded number, now I really hate to have to say this, it is a super-critical super-pejorative thing to say, but that's the way James Norman operated, that's doing things his way, the hard way.
Moreover, it is not needed to cover possible lessening of units at town center because a number of property owners at the Planning Commission session appeared and requested that given the state of neighborhood development without density transitioning around their properties, that they wanted their properties redesignated on the map and plan, so that even more than the 15,736 units are involved. Also, the Church property adjacent to Central Park was not worked into the 15,736 figure, so there is yet more of a glut.
Add on top of that confusion and misunderstanding, we had a staff planner having responsibilities, who left mid-stream for another job, and that was after lead planner Pat Trudgeon did the same thing, earlier.
Delay from such things and resultant communication and continuity problems are inevitable and inimical to arbitrary deadline setting from a reportedly compassionate and responsive agency, which is how Met Council under Peter Bell has characterized himself and his operation. According to Peter Bell's public statements about things one would not expect imposition of arbitrary hardship for delay caused by unavoidable circumstance such as these.
That and last minute release of a draft text with a consequent hurry, hurry, hurry push to flow it through, warts and all, can only result in a flawed and untrustworthy process. And it will not be trusted, by the voters, when it fiddles the numbers in last minute legerdemain. It is not a trustworthy way to operate.
As always, other opinions may differ.
In any event --
PLEASE, EVERYBODY, BE AT THE MEETING ON NOVEMBER 25. IT WILL BE WHEN THE COUNCIL HAS TO WRESTLE WITH THE SITUATIONAL COMPLEXITIES AND DECIDE WHAT IS BEST FOR RAMSEY. WHAT IS BEST FOR YOUR FUTURE AND MINE. WE ARE THE COMMUNITY. WE ARE THE ONES WHOSE INTEREST IS AT STAKE.
_______UPDATE_______
We all learned or by now should have learned that water availability may be a limiting factor, and that Met Council in parallel with the Comp Plan process was looking at the situation, and that Brian Olson gave a presentation to Met Council with Power Point visuals that are online at Met Council but were not incorporated in our citizen deliberations. See, e.g., here (p.4); here, here, here, and here. See, here, here, and here, e.g., for the region-wide situation.
If this is news to you, you should study it before going to the council meeting. The Ramsey presentation is the second link above, here, and it must be viewed in the context of the overall patterns of wells and demand on the aquifers. I have no idea why Brian Olson did not give his presentation to us during Ramsey3 or in later sessions. It is dated August 23, 2007, hence it was available.
If water is a problem, we should plan out at quota; not above quota, that simply does not make any sense. Met Council can weigh upon municipalities. But it cannot force nature to provide greater abundance nor can it make hesitant bankers, after subprime events, lend money to all buyers.
Because there will be market and natural resource limitations, it is only good sense that we plan conservatively, wisely, not with profligate abandon above quota.