Simply put, city employees would have more input to land use than a land owner. Even City Attorney Tim Donaldson agreed: "You could take and sell off a park for commercial development without much public input."Change to rezone rules moves ahead
The City Council signed off on drafting of an ordinance that would give the city greater latitude to change zoning of its lands.
A proposed amendment that would grant planners greater authority to rezone city property narrowly passed City Council on Wednesday night.
Council members Dominick Elia, Shane Laib, Jerry Cummins and Conrado Cavazos voted in favor of having legal staff draft the ordinance that would allow the city to rezone its own property as it sees fit, even if that rezone is not what was stipulated in the city's comprehensive plan.
Fred Mitchell, Jim Barrow and Mayor Barbara Clark voted against drafting the ordinance, arguing it would do away with a key part of the public hearing process and give the city more rights than the average property owner.
"The part that concerns me is that this would allow any city land use designation to be applied. That is a concern ... because in that instance the city is acting as any other landowner in the city," Clark said.
The vote was only to draft the ordinance, and it is opposed by quite a few people, for a number of reasons (see the Union Bulletin's editorial, "City government should follow same zoning rules as citizens").
And it's certainly another attack on property rights, and definitely denies the public due process in rezoning changes. That the current zoning process inconveniences public employees is immaterial; the City of Walla Walla does not need this degree of flexibility. If the process is broken, fix the process. As the WWUB put it, "City government should have to follow the same zoning laws as the citizens it serves."
If you live inside the city limits of Walla Walla, I recommend contacting the City Council about this. There will public input on the ordinance.
