City Promises to Obey Law ... Eventually

The Public Works Street and Bridge Operations division office at 3511 Manor Road isn't properly zoned, and neighbors don't like it. (Photo by John Anderson)

After years of dust, noise, and traffic from their annoying neighbors, residents in the JJ Seabrook neighborhood (east of Airport Boulevard, roughly from Anchor Lane/Manor Road to MLK) had finally had enough. So they called the city on the city.

A site at 3511 Manor Road has served as the city's maintenance and service facility for the Public Works Department's Street and Bridge Operations division since 2006 – patching potholes, resurfacing streets, maintaining medians, and dealing with occasional storms. All necessary work, but also messy work, that the neighbors describe as essentially an "ongoing construction site."

It's also illegal.

The current zoning on the lot doesn't permit the city facility. Up until last spring, that wasn't widely known. But in March, a neighbor called Code Compliance, and the site was promptly determined to be in violation of city code. The zoning, which at that point was a combination of Community Commercial (GR) and Limited Office (LO), prohibited such an intense operation.

To remedy the situation, Public Works is now seeking a change in zoning that would make its service yard legal, and the department has devised a plan that would prepare for what the neighborhood envisions – if the facility ever leaves the land. But after years of illegal use, the neighbors are dubious that that time will ever come. When the case was heard at the Planning Commission, neighbor Tom Arbuckle called the Public Works proposal "lipstick on a hog."

"When this is over, there is still going to be a facility at 3511 Manor Road," said Arbuckle. "It's going to have gravel. It's going to have sand. It's going to have big old trucks going in and out of it tomorrow morning. ... There's a real good chance that it's going to be like that in 10 years. There's no guarantee that this facility will change."

Public Works architect Kit Johnson acknowledged that he couldn't guarantee that the use would change – not unless the department could find another usable site, had the money to purchase that site, and won City Council approval for the move. But he presented a plan for the property that could better fit into the neighborhood, he said, taking special care to note features that could serve the neighborhood in the future – if the service and maintenance facility eventually departs.

The concept offers an office space that could be used by the community, ground-floor shell space for retail, open space, a rain garden, and, potentially, space for affordable housing. And, Johnson said, the open space behind the potential affordable housing could be used by children when it isn't being used to store road maintenance materials for weather emergencies (i.e. gravel and sand).

Many of the neighbors closest to the site simply aren't buying it. I.T. Gonzales told the commission that he didn't trust any of the plans drawn up by the city. He produced emails showing that when the city began contemplating the purchase of the land for the facility, proper zoning was already a concern.

An October 2007 email from city Real Estate Supervisor Ronald Olderog discusses the probability that, under current zoning, only 10% of the site could be used for material storage, noting that the issue needed to be explored "before S&B purchases something they cannot use." According to a city report, in February of 2011 Public Works staff submitted a site development exemption request – asking that the land use be changed from daycare to office/business, in order to remodel the building. There was no mention of any other use – e.g., road materials storage. (Office use is allowed under the current GR zoning.)

At least some neighbors do support the city's pending proposal. Ben Heimsath of the JJ Seabrook Neighborhood Association explained that the current proposal was what they could get Public Works to agree to, and pointed out that many of the problems had already been fixed in what was admittedly a "bad situation." He argued that if nothing is done, the neighborhood will be exactly where it was a year and a half ago, despite months of negotiations and sorting out what is and isn't legal on the property. He advocated accepting the current terms that lay out the potential for affordable housing, limit hours of operation, and thereby fix the "more noxious problems" on the site. "We're not thinking that we have a lot of lever to work with," Heimsath said. "But if we can take a bad situation and make it better now, we should do so instead of leaving an untenable situation ambiguous with no hope of change in sight."

Those opposed to the city's plan note that its neighborhood supporters live further away from the site than its opponents. In fact, a petition against the zoning has the support of just under 40% of the closest residents. (Though that might seem low, Gonzalez points out that of the eligible 18 properties, 16 owners have signed the petition. The rest of the area – just over 43% – is controlled by the city. And one of the two properties that hasn't signed belongs to a church reportedly just fed up with the process after signing two previous petitions and being rejected.

That percentage means it's a "valid petition" – meaning that, in order for the rezoning to pass, a supermajority of six City Council members would have to vote against the neighborhood's wishes, unlikely given the current makeup of the Council.

But before that even happens, Public Works would have to get past a rather unimpressed Planning Commission. The case has already been before them, but was unanimously postponed so that Public Works can come up with a concrete, written timeline and plan for relocating its facility in the future – to a site as yet unidentified.