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Show Council rezones Sampson Ave. area but excludes undeveloped parcel by Christopher Smart The City Council voted June 7 to rezone the platted area of Sampson Avenue and King Road to preclude nightly rentals, duplexes and time-share development. The one change was instigated by area residents who presented the city with a petition asking for the new zoning to protect the single-family single-family nature of the neighborhood. neigh-borhood. The petitioners also held that the narrow roads in the area weren't sufficient to handle high-density development. develop-ment. In moving to rezone that neighborhood, however, the council excluded unplatted parcels in the area from being rezoned. In making the move, Councilman Bob Wells said the council felt that it was dealing with two separate sepa-rate issues. One was a zone change request on the part of the residents and the other a planning issue concerning the undeveloped grounds in the area. The council was presented with those issues at a May 31 public hearing on the rezon-ing rezon-ing of the area. At that meeting, landowners who had not yet developed their grounds came out against the proposed rezoning. Ed Sweeney, representing the Dewey Anderson estate, which holds 14 lots in the area, said that residents should not be given a larger voice in rezoning than landowners who have not yet developed their land. Sweeney Sween-ey charged the rezoning was arbitrary. While the Planning Commission Com-mission had previously recommended recom-mended that the zone change be granted, some of the commissioners expressed the same concern. Commissioner Dean Berrett said the rezoning rezon-ing of Sampson Avenue is not consistent with the Comprehensive Compre-hensive Plan. He added that the measure could constitute "spot zoning." Steve Deckert, another member of Planning Commission, Com-mission, opposed the recommendation. recom-mendation. Deckert also sits on the Historic District Commission which earlier tabled the Sampson rezoning measure to ask the city if a comprehensive zoning plan had been budgeted and if a moratorium could be imposed impos-ed on Sampson until Old Town plan was formed. However, the city staff maintains that the rezoning of the platted area on Sampson Avenue and King Road is consistent with the Comprehensive Plan. Plan ning Director Bill Iigety added that it made more sense to consider the various zone change requests on an "area to area" basis. Ligety said the request to rezone Sampson is very similar to the proposal put to the city by Rossie Hill residents last fall. Both areas have access problems and are of a single-family-dwelling character, he said. The Sweeney family, which owns a large portion of the unplatted grounds considered con-sidered in the original zone change request, argued against the measure at public hearings. However, at the June 7 meeting Mike Sweeney Sween-ey told the council that his family was prepared to place restrictions on the property to insure single-family development devel-opment in the future. |