Document text
- Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Archives Revels Classifieds Real Estate Menu Guide Wedding Weather Subscribe Contact Us February 2, 2006 Infill chat brings out many sides Residents discuss term at an informal meeting By Robert Plain Ashland Daily Tidings Infill was not debated at an informal meeting on Tuesday night. There was little, if any, political posturing or talking points offered to further or enhance a particular mind-set. There was no end to the public forum session, as is the case in official municipal meetings, and no one — elected official or average citizen — had any greater influence on the subject matter than anyone else. At a very different kind of meeting — which attracted everyone from city councilors and the mayor, a quorum of five of the nine planning commissioners, a host of people from the development industry and a healthy dose of interested residents — infill was just discussed. Some, like Ann Taylor, came to educate themselves on just what people mean when they say infill. “I, too, am curious how we define infill,” she said, after several others said the same. Others, like residents from the Hillview Drive and the Oak Knoll neighborhoods, came to gripe about how infill has affected their existing homes. “A big concern for us is the open space we are losing,” said Ron Tracy, of the Oak Knoll Neighborhood Association. “We need to decide if we are going to be a city or a town,” Debbie Miller said. Some came to stand up for infill, which they attribute to being a large part of Ashland’s success as a livable community. Kerry KenCairn, a landscape architect and a former planning commissioner, said, “I believe in it. I live on a 7,500 square-foot lot that was once an entire city block. It’s part of the progression of a town. ” Others came to stick up for those who are not yet convinced that infill is the only solution. City Councilor Jack Hardesty said, “I want to go on record as saying just because you question infill doesn’t mean you are for sprawl.” Still others — like Brent Thompson, a former planning commissioner and city councilor, Even Archerd and Larry Medinger, both long-time local developers, came to offer a historical perspective of infill and its related issues. “When I first got on the planning commission all I wanted to do was knock down density,” Thompson said. “Then I went through this catharsis. All that was going to do was use up more land and make the vehicle trips longer. Finally I got it through my mind that people are going to come anyway. Do we want to jump the highway or do we want to figure out a way of increasing density in ways that people wouldn’t hate?” Archerd said during the early 1980s, density requirements were decreased. If a developer wanted increased density, he said, they had “to provide a public good,” like affordable housing or an energy efficient design. Ron Roth, the co-owner of Geppetto’s Restaurant, said infill was good for the downtown core. “To have greater density downtown, I think, would be very advantageous for the community,” he said, noting that if more people lived downtown less people would need to travel there. While others, like David Subia, said when, what he parsed as infill, happens at the edges of town, it often means the loss of Ashland’s few remaining farms. He said he misses the geese and cows he used to watch on Clay Street. He noted that Albertson’s, in his opinion, did not move to the south end of town because of what was already there, but rather for what kind of development could be there in the future. Mat Marr, an Ashland School Board member who grew up near a fast-evolving Mountain Avenue, said much of the new development near his house has been sold but still sits vacant. Mark Knox, a former municipal planner who now works in the private sector, said this was the fault of the market and not a policy of infill. “The market is extremely hard to control,” he said. “What gives infill a bad rap is the size of the houses that are being built. It would be ideal to have 600-square-foot apartments but who is going to build them? We also need to have some market-rate housing in there, too.” Knox was critical of the way this meeting was put together, which was organized two planning commissioners — Michael Dawkins and John Stromberg — acting outside of their official capacity. But he ended up being one of the most informative contributors to the group, being able to speak to the differences between zoning ordinances and the comprehensive plan, for example. Larry Medinger — who has been a planning commissioner, a housing commissioner and a developer — said infill is to the benefit of the people that have yet to move to Ashland. He said at a previous point in Ashland’s history, the railroad district was the new development in Ashland that everyone had to get used to, even though today it is regarded as a historical section of the city. Mike Morris, a member of the planning commission who grew up in town, said infill benefits residents because he can enjoy the city’s urban amenities and still ride his bike out to a relatively pristine Emigrant Lake. Morris said Ashland’s population has doubled since he graduated high school in 1973 but the city’s size has remained the same. John Fields, the chair of the planning commission, said, infill or not, Ashland is experiencing a shifting demographic and, to date, infill has been the best policy to deal with an ever-increasing influx of new people. “We have all these boomers with extra cash” who are moving to Ashland, he said. “They want the good life and, once they get here, they don’t want to lose it. The question is, are we going to put up a gate because we like it just the way it is? We want it all and we don’t want to lose our quality of life.” He said the problem was not infill, or Ashland, or new residents versus older ones; he said the most prevalent issue at hand is “globalism.” To actually address the issue most people spoke to, he said, Ashland should be considering its carrying capacity, not a policy on infill. Over the course of the two-hour discussion, anyone who wanted to was able to talk at length but no conclusions were came to and no decisions were made. Dawkins and Stromberg said they would forward the comments that came from the meeting to their full commission but alerted the attendees that, because this was not a city-sponsored meeting, the municipality is not obliged to use the information. Toward the end of the meeting, Roth, in encapsulating the spirit of the evening, said he would like it if someone, or several people, who attended this meeting would apply to be the new director of Ashland’s planning department. “That’s what we really need,” he said. “Not someone with all the right credentials. Someone who really cares.” Staff writer Robert Plain can be reached at 482-3456 x 226 or [email protected]. DailyTidings.com Home Page Archives | Revels | Classifieds | Real Estate Guide | Weather | Subscribe | Contact Us Copyright 2005 Ashland Daily Tidings and Ottaway Newspapers All Rights Reserved Deep Muscle Stimulator Ceramic Piggy Banks FREE Entertainment Guide Women's & Men's Slippers Accelerate Weightloss Products Backpacks Online Pharmacy Vegas Travel Guide Search Engine Optimization Student Loans Hotel & Airline Reservations Hammocks Water Filter Helzberg Diamonds Online Casinos Community Bonus Casino Mortgage Calculator Security Systems Mailing Lists Click Here Advertisement .:Advertisements:. Site Search: RESOURCES - Mail Tribune News - ODOT Road Cams