Pickerington Area Taxpayers Alliance

January 2004
Updated 01-19-04

Not just about Condominium?’s wanting a sewer permit, is there more to the story regarding the (3) still pending court cases that involve ?“Bercley Cottages?”? Why would the following comments be made; ''Things were absolutely, 100 percent fine,'' said developer Larry Rosen. ''It was signed off?”

All the while the cases in question remain unresolved.

For your consideration;

Case #1.
http://fairfieldcountyclerk.com/Search/report.asp?txtCaseNum=82305703

Case #2.
http://fairfieldcountyclerk.com/Search/report.asp?txtCaseNum=30401075

Case #3.
http://fairfieldcountyclerk.com/Search/report.asp?txtCaseNum=57684108


01-01-04

Happy New Year

--yet remember
Mankind will never see an end of trouble until... lovers of wisdom come to hold political power, or the holders of power... become lovers of wisdom. ~Plato, The Republic




News Articles of the Month
Selected Highlights of article

Unions seeing new benefits in 'smart growth'
By John Ritter, USA TODAY

SAN DIEGO ?— A battle to curtail suburban sprawl around California's second-largest city feels like d?©j?  vu. The same powerful interests that shot down protections for rural land six years ago are poised to torpedo a new ballot measure in March.

Except for a key difference.

Organized labor, once opposed to any development curbs for fear of losing jobs, avidly supports the recycled voter initiative.
The building trades unions, usually wary of ''smart growth'' policies, have become convinced that those development practices hold potential for more jobs and better jobs than sprawl does.



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''We want to increase growth. We just want it to be dense, to stop this sprawl. It's killing us.''

Labor gives the anti-sprawl coalition of environmentalists and proponents of mass transit a potent new ally that has political resources and clout in the construction industry.

Countering a 'misguided notion'

A study released last month by Good Jobs First, a non-profit research center in Washington, D.C., found that over a 10-year period, metro areas with growth controls had nearly a third more construction than areas without such policies. Rehabilitating buildings, developing idle urban land and reclaiming toxic sites for building ?— all smart-growth priorities ?— were more labor-intensive than sprawl, the study found.

''Unions just assumed growth limits meant fewer jobs for their members,'' says Phil Mattera, Good Jobs First's corporate research director. ''Our report shows that's a misguided notion.''

Smart-growth advocates say sprawl expands suburbs haphazardly with large lot sizes in subdivisions that create more traffic congestion and chew up open space.

Along with arguments that it creates more jobs, smart growth complements other union priorities. Labor fights ''big-box'' retailers such as Wal-Mart because they're non-union. Labor's smart-growth allies blame those companies for hastening sprawl.

But union leaders also say smart growth enriches their members' lives by producing less traffic, cleaner air, shorter commutes and more open space.

Protecting rural land

In San Diego, a county of 2.9 million people more than three times the area of Rhode Island, conservationists have grown impatient with the county's efforts to protect its undeveloped eastern two-thirds. A new zoning plan, nearly a decade in the making, won't be finished before 2005. Groups such as Save Our Forests and Ranchlands (SOFAR), sponsor of the ballot measure, fear more land will be lost in the meantime.

In 1996, a judge found the county's stewardship of open land so inept that she gave SOFAR temporary authority over land-use decisions.

But opponents, including elected county supervisors, say SOFAR's Rural Lands Initiative would bypass public hearings and environmental reviews and let city voters decide smaller communities' fate against their will.

Opponents also fear housing shortages and higher home prices.

The measure would block sprawl by prohibiting lot sizes smaller than 40 acres just east of San Diego's cities and smaller than 80 acres in the backcountry. A similar measure lost badly in 1998 without union backing.

Momentum may have turned since then. Endorsements from the League of Women Voters and the American Lung Association could offset opposition from builders, the chamber of commerce and others.

''The public on a much wider scale now sees the insanity of unplanned growth,'' SOFAR President Duncan McFetridge says. ''But sprawl politics is vicious here. It's going to be a battle.''

Read entire article at: http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2004-01-02-smartgrowth-usat_x.htm




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