The Planning Commission recommended most of the Capital Blvd. North corridor plan, with the exception of changes to the city street plan for that area (which the commission just didn’t comment on, rather than (dis)approving it). The other maps, including upgrades to BRT, bike lanes, denser land uses etc. were still endorsed, too.
The contentious 4-3 vote and the awkward omission is not exactly because commissioners are against walkable developments and local street connections that are bus, pedestrian, and bike-friendly; even the commissioners who voted against the motion still supported those ideas. Instead, the three “nay” votes (plus a failed motion to deny a recommendation) were more like protest votes because literally everyone overstates how much power the PROPOSALS for new roads on city maps have on actual city decisions -and it only does more harm than good.
Click to see what I mean.
As commissioner Jennifer Lampman put it, it’s clear that even just proposed road changes can piss off local residents and businesses. Even if these plans are just educated initial ideas, the authority of those lines on a plan get blown way out of proportion by literally everyone else.
But not only that, developers also think those proposed changes are exact, precise gospels that must be followed to a T (and they tend to not be able to secure funding unless such plans are in place). As commissioner Brian O’Haver put it:
It’s these sorts of anxieties that have produced multiple comments that criticized the corridor plan proposal.
Let’s be real: City Council will probably approve this plan (it’ll probably come back to the council later this month or in March?), anyways. But we still have a real, underlying problem of people drawing the wrong conclusions about their living conditions today due to land use plans years into the future. This issue will keep festering, at least, unless our new efforts to simplify the zoning process and educating people on it comes into play.