Tri-cities: So many planners, so little to plan

Local planning departments have seen their workload dry up as builders curtail or abandon projects. In this economy, most cities reduced their planning staffs because of the decreased demand for services. But not East Point.

With a population of nearly 38,000, the city employs three full-time planners. In 2009, the staff handled just 29 zoning applications. The city of Roswell with over 79,000 residents employs four planners who handled 167 applications that year.

East Point planners do have other tasks, even if they have to invent them. When the department initiated rezoning single-family, traditional neighborhoods to multifamily, it took the entire staff — four planners at that time — to present the rezoning to a neighborhood. When the discussion became heated, the four stormed out.

The department says they did not have to notify the association of the proposed zoning changes. Years before, citizens fought successfully for City Council to require notification of neighborhood associations on city-initiated zoning changes. The department had the provision stricken.

The rezoning under consideration identified many historic single-family homes to be changed to multifamily. Did the planners verify the current use of the targeted properties? No. But they repeatedly told citizens, the planning commission and council they did. Residents did the checking that should have been done by the planning staff, and the rezoning proposal was dropped.

Did that stop the department from continuing its effort to increase density in traditional neighborhoods? No. The department was not even stopped by the city’s comprehensive development plan, which is required by state law and clearly states the neighborhoods targeted by planning staff should remain traditional neighborhoods of single-family, detached homes.

Building sustainable communities requires balancing owner occupied to rental housing. A good balance for residential neighborhoods is 60 percent owner-occupied, 40 percent rental. Reducing rentals reduces the availability of a diversity of affordable housing; reducing owner occupied housing destabilizes a neighborhood. East Point’s planning department has consistently ignored the need for balance.