The community activist group Bedford Watch will be seeking referendum on the recent rezoning approval of the Whitman land at the intersection of Sterns and Lewis. A referendum is a direct vote, done during a special election, by the entire community that will either affirm the township board’s decision on the rezoning or overturn it. From the Bedford Watch website:
After meeting with our legal team, we have been informed that the only way to stop a rezoning that a township board approves is with a referendum. On December 2, 2008, the majority of the Bedford Township Board members approved 5 of the 6 Whitman Ford parcels up for rezoning.
I have spoken with the township and ascertained that a special election/referendum will cost the township an additional $8-9,000 and that Bedford Watch has been given all the information on how to appropriately seek the referendum. Should a special election be necessary the township will place the referendum vote in with another election such as a school election to keep added costs down.
One township official I spoke to is pleased at the possibility of referendum as it puts the vote in the hands of the community and would essentially (in my own words) seal the deal.
One question I did not ask and I wish I would have but it just came to me right now is if there is a referendum vote will the voters of the community be asked to affirm or overturn each parcel or the property as a whole? It’d be interesting to see if the same five parcels were affirmed and the decision on parcel six be overturned and therefore rezoned C-2. My assumption is that the referendum vote would simply ask to affirm or deny the decision made by the board.
And slightly unrelated to this I wanted to clear up something that Mr. Jim Goebel made reference to during the meeting in regards to low income senior housing. I think the words low income are intended to frighten people or just have that negative stigma attached to it. For a perfectly great example of low income senior housing already in our township take a look at Ivor Lindsay on Lewis Ave in Temperance. The facility is kept up nicely, the grounds are taken care of, and the residents are genuinely nice people from what I am told. Low income senior housing should it be placed on the rezoned land at Sterns and Lewis should be of no concern to anyone in this community as we’ve seen little to no issue from existing low income senior housing already established here.
Tags: Bedford Watch, Ivor Lindsay, James Goebel, Whitman rezoning
I’ve watched this Whitman rezoning thing for a couple of years with both amusement and trepidation. 30 years ago Lewis Avenue was expanded to become a five-lane arterial which at that time had virtually no commercial development. It was clearly impractical to expand it into the Village of Temperance because right of way acquisition would have been impossible. The road was probably expanded to relieve future bottlenecks for working commuters and shoppers going back and forth between Temperance.
You don’t have to be a professional real estate developer or urban planner to know that this property was ripe for commercial development in the future. The real tradgedy of this saga is neither Jon Whitman nor the Township reached out to the opponents during the process. Whitman would have been better off to sell it years ago and transfer the headache to an out-of-town developer.
“Zoning-wise”, a carefully crafted PUD would have been the way to go. The site was clearly big enough to buffer and transition land use away from Indian Acres. There could have been enough zoning conditions and studies imposed to mitigate site factors and require enough on/off site public improvements by the developer, even for a Walmart. It seems apparent that the Township and perhaps the County Planning Commission don’t have enough expertise or coordination to handle large impact development issues to ensure smart growth development. Which is odd because Township development ordinances are well written, but obviously mis-applied. I do not see any staff development reports anywhere to know if any of this was considered.
Jon may not able to receive “highest and best use” for his property, but the Township Board probably had to concede something to avoid inverse condemnation.
The Township Government really needs to get it together. Zoning by referendum is charting dangerous waters and an unnessary expense to the taxpayer in hard economic times.