[deja vu]

Originally Posted by LMich

Since this is going to a public hearing, do you mean a committee of the city commission aproved the rezoning, and then it goes to a public hearing, and then the full city commission? At least that's how it works in my town.

^ The request originally came from the Community Planning and Development Department, and it was reviewed by the Planning Commission at their November 2 meeting. The PC moved to approve the rezoning request and send it up to the City Commission for review (November 2 PC Meeting Minutes). It was then reviewed by the full City Commission board on Monday, with recommendation to proceed with amending the zoning ordinance. The minutes for that meeting are not approved / posted yet, but I heard this from others who have spoken with City staff. After the required public hearings, it goes back to the full City Commission for a final vote. I think this is the typical format in Kzoo.

At the 11/2 PC meeting, during the public comment portion, concerns were raised by the owner of the adjacent scrapyard, including the fact that some of the park land overlaps his property, and that he would lose his M-1 buffer that separates the scrap yard from CMU (the scrap yard is M-2). He and another commenter also asked for more info about the City's redevelopment plans and raised concern that the property is in a floodplain and how would that be handled for any commercial or residential development.

Originally Posted by LMich

I was reading a bit more about it, and it doesn't sound like the rezoning is really much more than to bring it into similar zoning to the surrounding properties. Doesn't sound like a rezoning for redevelopment. But, I guess what that does kind of hint at is that they are looking at the surrounding area in a new way.

^ No details about development plans in the proposed rezoning area have been publically shared - yet. But the City has wanted to grow development in this area for a while, so I would expect that there will be more news to come on this front. Also waiting to hear from the Brownfield Redevelopment Authority about the results of their RFP to developers to develop 4 parcels in the River's Edge district. Those RFPs were due Nov 3 with Developer Selection supposed to take place Dec 3.

Originally Posted by LMich

Looking at aerials, it seems like this is pretty well disconnected from downtown (kind of like the issues with WSU) because of rail and industrial areas. Hopefully as redevelopment spreads outward they can figure out a way to pull it in closer to the center. It seems that's a problem with a lot of near-downtown neighborhoods in Kalamazoo. A lot of bad planning fairly early in the city's history that kind of prevented dense, inner-city neighborhoods around the downtown. And, what I can only was "urban renewal" they did north of the Amtrak line north of downtown was a travesty. I wonder what that area used to look like?

^ Very true. The City as a whole took a worse hit than many during the 1960s - 1970s - its downtown and surroundings were ravaged by urban renewal - I remember reading somewhere that more than 50% of the buildings downtown were demolished during this time. Lynn Houghton and Pamela O'Connor's book Kalamazoo Lost & Found is a great resource for some of the great buildings that were lost.