April 28, 2008
Developers and homebuilders have big concerns about a proposed new subdivision ordinance going to the El Paso City Council for discussion and debate today.
And West-Central Rep. Susie Byrd said she isn’t happy about the changes developers were able to make in the proposed ordinance and plans to make recommendations of her own.
The meeting starts at 9 a.m. Tuesday (April 29) on the second floor of City Hall and can be seen live or in a delayed broadcast at 7 p.m. on cable Ch. 15.
City Council won’t vote on the final version of the new subdivision ordinance until May 6 but is expected to hear public comment today and to vote on changes and amendments.
“The big, meaty stuff will be (Tuesday),” Byrd said. “All those amendments will be reviewed and voted up or down.”
The proposed re-written version of the city’s subdivision code has been a work in progress for months and contains “smart growth” principles that Byrd and a majority of the council have wanted to see for a long time.
Among other things, those principles call for mixed use neighborhoods, narrower streets, wider sidewalks and bigger and better parks that developers will have to build.
Byrd, who said she forced herself onto the ad hoc committee made up of developer representatives and city staff members that worked on the proposed ordinance, said she has been under pressure to go along with the committee’s recommendation but will not do so.
“I thought the end product would be divorced from what the initial policy goals were because the committee was not particularly committed to those goals,” Byrd said.
She said she will push hard for the six-foot-wide sidewalks after the subcommittee recommended going with five feet –- still an increase over the current requirement for four-foot-wide sidewalks.
And she will fight to keep a formula for gauging the connectivity of streets, which encourages more cross streets and discourages cul-de-sacs and the long uninterrupted streets now in many subdivisions.
“We’re building subdivisions with few ways in or out and very little connectivity,” she said. “As a result you induce many more vehicle miles, you force people to drive on over-burdened streets, which increases congestion, and you discourage walking.”
She said the connectivity index would lead to more developments like hers, Manhattan Heights, and fewer like those built in the past 30 years on the East Side.
Ray Adauto, executive director of the El Paso Association of Builders, said the members of his organization have serious concerns about the proposed ordinance and its potential impact on growth in El Paso.
“It’s too ambiguous,” he said. “You don’t mind playing the game as long as you know the rules.”
But the rules are not clear and the timing isn’t good.
“The business climate in the city is lousy right now,” he said. “The city is getting in the way of doing business.”
Eastridge/Mid-Valley Rep. Steve Ortega said no one is particularly happy with the proposed ordinance.
“My main concern is promoting development in the community that we can be proud of while being economically feasible for those doing the development,” he said. “But anything that will cost more money or that is different from what we now know is going to be opposed, and I know that.”
David Crowder can be reached at dcrowder@elpasomediagroup.com and (915) 351-0605