Urban Planning and Planning Commission - Essay Example

Urban Planning For my project I decided to attend the Planning Commission meeting. The planning commission has a duty to review, analyze and make recommendations to the council in regards to use of land and other development related issues (Steiner, 67). The commission holds public meetings in this regard and members of the public are encouraged to attend and air their views. This commission meets on the 1st Wednesday of every month at the Municipal center in the Town of Gilberts, council chambers, 50 E Civic Center drive. I attended the meeting that was on this month on 5th March, 2014. The meeting starts at 5.00 p.m. From my first impression, the meeting was going on smoothly although there are some changes that could be made to ensure that the meeting is more efficient. The chairman was commendable in his role and ensured that order was maintained throughout the meeting. People respected his calls and he was the final authority in regards to all the matters in regards to the meeting. The members of the public who attended the event had also been informed on the need of order during the meeting. One improvement I would recommend is that the meeting be held on Saturdays instead of during the agenda week. This is because of several factors. People might not want to go home late in the night and therefore the meeting can run late into the night and be adjourned. If the meeting is held on a Saturday afternoon, people will have ample time to go through the meeting and also further time to air their contributions. I was surprised to notice various prominent people in the town at the meeting. One that I did not expect was the mayor, John Lewis, who was also in attendance. Most of the time, he was silent and just took down notes, however, when it to the AOB segment he thanked the commission for assisting him in trying to fulfill his election agenda of a better Gilberts Town that would be the envy of the country. He requested that this cordial relationship continue into the future. His presence there was a sign of the importance of this meeting to the community. Initially, I thought that any attendee of the meeting could speak at the meeting but I realized this was not the case. Anyone who wants to speak at the meeting must fill a speaker card. An individual fills the agenda items he wants to speak on and filing it with the clerk before the actual meeting. There are several guidelines that determine the use of speaker cards: People supporting or opposing similar issues are urged to select a single speaker to present their interests. This will be their spokesman. Items that are not on the agenda but should be discussed are included in the open forum segment of the agenda. When a designated speaker is called to air their views, the speaker shall use the microphone set for public use and announce their name, position in regards to the argument and then go on and proceed to air their views. Under the open forum, only topics related to land use will be listened to. Every speaker has a designated time for them to air their views and this cannot be changed. At this meeting the designated time was a maximum of 1 minute per speaker. It is important to note that speaker cards are public property and the information provided on them can be accessed by the public in future for reference. The agenda in regards to the meetings are posted on the commission website three days to the meeting. For this particular meeting, the following were some of the Items on the agenda: 1. Roll call 2. Minutes for approval 3. Social complex building presentations 4. Downtown c district update 5. Land use code text amendments-renewable energy generation 6. Land use code text amendments Reduction in required nos. of motor vehicle parking places, Loading zones, Zoning compliance for existing site improvements 7. Aob Mayor & council updates Discussion of planning committee meeting start time Other planning commission items (future agenda items for discussion) 8. Call to the audience 9. Adjournment The meeting started out with the chairman calling the meeting to order. Everyone in the room went silent. There was a quick roll call of the committee members to determine out those who were present for the meeting. Once this was done, the meeting moved to the next agenda. This was approval of the previous meetings. The secretary read the minutes of the previous meetings to those present. The meetings were confirmed to be accurate by one individual, he was further seconded by another member and the meeting moved on to the next stage. The city is planning to build a complex center that would house various social amenities. Several presentations were made to showcase the various designs and the impact that each design would have on the environment. After brief deliberations, it was decided that one of the designs was to be considered, the developer was required to present the architectural plans to the commissions office within a period of 2 weeks, failure of which would lead to selection of another designer during the next meeting. The next agenda focused on downtown district. Several businessmen were proposing that the area should be made a purely warehouse district. They argued that the demand for such facilities was increasing and it could be a major income earner for the town. This would however involve the eviction of some of the present tenants and bringing down some unsuitable structures. It was decided that separate company would be hired to carry out due studies on the viability of the project. Results were expected to be ready in 3 to 4 months and it was agreed .that tenants of the district would be called to a separate meeting to get their views in regards to the subject. There was an agenda in regards to the amendment of the land use code. There was a proposal that all new buildings coming up should produce 40% of the energy to be used through renewable energy. This could be done by adoption of solar energy. This was agreed unanimously by the meeting and the amendment was passed. There was a proposal in regards to the adoption of renewable energy by existing landlords. This was however postponed to be discussed at the next meeting. There were further amendments in the land use code. This was in regards to: the reduction in the number of motor vehicle parking places, loading zones and zoning compliance for existing site improvements. It was agreed that the number of parking spaces in the town would be reduced from 23 to 15. This was to be done over a period of 6 months to free up the land for development. Designated loading zones will also be created on each street to reduce congestion caused by delivery trucks. All existing site improvements were also required to obtain compliance before beginning of any works. The AOB section was marked with statements from the mayor; the members then discussed what time would be best to start future meetings so that the meetings can end early enough for them to proceed to other commitments. Members also debated freely about the need to create new timelines for carrying out duties of the commission, in this way, their work could be much more effective. This idea was supported by majority of those present. There was a call to the audience and the members of the public had the chance to air their opinion in regards to the role played by the commission. Most of their questions were answered and those who could not get immediate responses were promised the same in a time frame of two weeks. After this, the chairman called the meeting to a close and after a prayer from one of the members the meeting was adjourned. Works cited: Steiner, Frederick R. The Living Landscape: An Ecological Approach to Landscape Planning. Washington, DC: Island Press, 2008. Read More