I sent the Petition signatures and comments to Mayor Beck, Councilman Shafer and Lorie Dever this morning in anticipation of the August 17th Planning and Zoning Committee meeting.  I plan on being at the meeting and would encourage as many of you as possible to attend.

Here are my comments that I also sent today with the signatures and comments:

Dear Mayor Beck,  Ms Dever and Councilman Shafer,

Attached are the signatures (838 of them) along with comments on the Petition to Stop Zoning Amendment to the Vistancia District’s Five North Area.  This petition can be found on Change.org the link is: https://chng.it/M6sjRqNmTh

As you will see there are 838 signatures, which is strong opposition to this rezoning. 

In addition to the above comments I would like to add that I am not opposed to development in the Commercial Core (320 Acres).  However, what Vistancia really needs is retail development such as grocery stores (I know a Fry’s is proposed), restaurants, bars and shopping areas.  If you look at the proposed map from the developer (see the Petition picture) only a small portion of Five North is devoted to those needs and 25 of so acres of that will be taken up by the Fry’s Food store.  Instead almost all of it would be devoted to High Density and Mid-Density Apartments (1,900 of them) and Office Space.  Also, very, very little is devoted to green space.    

I have asked the Developer for a breakdown of the acres devoted to each use but haven’t received a response.   However, a review of their map makes it pretty clear that not much is going to be devoted to the retail and green space that Vistancia needs.

It is my understanding that there are 18,000 residents of Vistancia (this is based on an internet search).  Adding 1,900 apartments will likely represent at least a 20% increase in population, housed on a very small area.   As the comments suggest the schools are already crowded.  Liberty High School is busting at the seams.  We don’t have any kids in the Vistancia schools but I have talked to parents, teachers and kids and they all agree that the High School is way too crowded.

The Developer does have some nice pictures of what they propose but I’m not sure that will end up being what this project looks like in the end.  Hopefully, the Mayor and the Common Council will listen to the people and vote to not let this rezoning proposal go through as it is currently proposed.