HomeMy WebLinkAbout10-05-23 Public Comment - D. Pickard - UDC proposal- NO!From:Dale Pickard
To:Agenda; "Dale Pickard"
Subject:[EXTERNAL]UDC proposal- NO!
Date:Tuesday, October 3, 2023 3:32:19 PM
CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you
recognize the sender and know the content is safe.
To whom it may concern,
I own my own small home at 527 North Montana Street and I own tasteful commercial property on
the NE side. I own a small business that has employed many local “workforce” members since
~1987. I originally purchased these properties with the intention of abiding by the zoning regulations
in place. I expected to be protected by them from the kinds of untoward impact that the City now
seems to be bent on. We are not being protected, we are being violated.
I am proud to be a member of the “workforce” and I thoroughly resent the condescending attitude
and policies of city commissions and their councils past and present toward this vital and authentic
part of our community. You are trying to force our middle class working families into dormitory
housing to better service the wealthy and the useless. We have been sold out in a very literal sense.
A good example is how our water itself is sold to developers who have no actual rights to the water
they intend to consume. These are the many ways used to circumvent and undermine our
constitutional rights to a clean and healthy environment.
In just a few years the city commission’s negligent actions have already destroyed and fractured
much of a community that took 90 years to build and grow organically. By favoring real estate
developers over the people, the Governor’s housing task force, the radical State legislature and the
laws and recommendations coming from them are not meant in good faith but are in fact designed
to have exactly this negative and destructive effect on our community and our local economy. They
should not have ever allowed private interests to to purchase and sell off our community to the
highest bidder.
“Increasing density”, and “building up” and “infill” has done nothing to reduce sprawl into the
county. To think so is to accept a lie. This new code will produce more of what we have already seen,
luxury condos and luxury homes that no one lives in. The idea that developers will shrink single
family homes into 8 dormitory style apartments, cram them all onto a tiny city lot like mine, and
somehow make housing affordable for the middle class is just a lie. There is no “middle density”
housing that is being “zoned out”. We know what will actually happen. Adopting these changes will
result in the degradation in the quality of life for all, especially for those who actually live and work
here.
Without doubt, others have expressed these and many other reasons that you as council members
must DENY this UDC proposal and abandon this course. I want to strongly reiterate all of those
comments. Please stop disappointing us.
Dale Pickard
527 North Montana