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HomeMy WebLinkAboutWritten correspondence from March 19th City Council MeetingWritten correspondence from March 19th City Council Meeting: Mike and Michelle King: / ========================================================== David and Lindsey Barrus: March 16, 2014 To City Council, We are writing about the decision before you to rezone Ms. Ellis’ property on 7th South in Rexburg. We support the planning and zoning recommendation to rezone her property to LDR3. We are opposed to rezoning the property to a density higher than LDR3 as has been requested by Ms. Ellis. We realize that Ms. Ellis has a Constitutional right to sell her property and try and get the most value she can out of it. We are not opposed to that. But we also realize that in her pursuit to increase the value of her property, there is the potential for harmful consequences to our property. We have a few concerns we would like to express, and we also have some questions that we would like City Council to answer in the meeting on March 19th. Concerns When we moved to Rexburg and bought our property at 1079 Arctic Willow Drive (northwest of Ms. Ellis property), we were grateful for the quiet nature of the area. The Meadows townhomes serve as a buffer between our home and Highway 20. We also realized that the Ellis and Hernandez property would be developed at some point. However, we never dreamed that there could potentially be apartments. We realize there are no current plans for development of Ms. Ellis’ property, but we are concerned that having apartments nearby could potentially lead to a decrease or slower growth in our property values. If the Ellis’ property is rezoned to allow apartments, we don’t see how the City Council could deny, at some future point, a request from the Hernandez family to rezone their property to the same density as the Ellis property. We have concerns that apartments would lead to our home having less value than it currently does. We worry that the apartment complex won’t be kept up due to the transient nature of the residents. We see that this has happened in other parts of Rexburg near residential neighborhoods. We are also concerned about privacy issues. It is a great place to live right now, but if an apartment complex is three stories high there is the potential for a reduction in privacy. Another concern we have is the state of 7th South. In a communication with a member of City Council, we got a distinct impression that one of the major purposes to approve a higher density would be the requirement placed on a future developer to improve 7th South. We have concerns that the City Council would make a rezoning decision based on the potential to improve a road. Is there a precedent for making a decision based primarily on a desire to fix a road? If it is a primary motivation for this development, will you do it for other, less desirable developments? What is your limiting principle? When do you allow changes to zoning based on a desire to improve a road and when do you not? In our opinion, this is a slippery slope and may not even solve the Meadows access problems. We also have concerns about why the comprehensive plan was changed in the first place. We like how the city has constructed a comprehensive plan to help develop Rexburg in an orderly and logical way. The changing of the comprehensive plan to allow the development of higher density units on Ms. Ellis’ lot makes no sense to us. Is it really that easy to change the comprehensive plan for a single citizen? Since you allowed it for one citizen, why not for the rest of the landowners of Rexburg? If we got a developer or someone that had influence and money, would you let us change the comprehensive plan to allow us the potential to rezone our lot so we can build apartments on it? We don’t think you would because it makes no sense in the comprehensive plan. We hope that as you consider how Ms. Ellis’ plot should be rezoned, you will know that your decisions have consequences and sometimes they are unintended including setting precedence for future zone changes. Questions We have a few additional questions that we would like City Council to answer in their deliberations on March 19th. Most of these questions have arisen from communications with a member of City Council. It was explained to us in a communication with a City Council member that a future developer of Ms. Ellis’ property would be required to improve 7th South. Will the developer that develops Ms. Ellis’ property have to widen ALL of 7th South from 12th West to the dead end? Or just the portion of the road that borders the property? How does this potential improvement to 7th South solve the safety issue with the Meadows having only one entrance/exit? This is a concern that the Planning and Zoning brought up when they rejected the change to the Comprehensive plan in 2012. Why can’t the city get a grant from the State or Federal government to improve 7th South? It was explained to us that one thing that could protect our privacy, if there were apartments, would be the requirement that the developer put in a tree barrier. If the city put this requirement on the property, can and will the city enforce that trees will always be there to ensure privacy? How will an apartment in a rural type area help my home value? This is one of our major concerns, and we would like to hear the members of City Council address this concern. We hope that members of City Council will provide answers to these questions and address our concerns. We respect and admire the City Council. You have been elected to make hard decisions. We hope that you will take our concerns under consideration. We also hope that you know we have no animosity towards Ms. Ellis. We respect her desire to want to improve the value of her property. We hope that you, as the City Council, will also realize that long after Ms. Ellis has sold her property we, who purchased homes in Rexburg to be permanent residents, will be left with the consequences of your actions. We feel that a higher density, with the potential for apartments, could significantly lessen our privacy and our home’s value. We see the Ellis property being rezoned to a density that is the same as the Meadows as extending the Meadows. While there are townhomes and duplexes on the west side of Highway 20, there are no apartment buildings. We hope that it remains that way.