Minor Code Amendment Process (MiCAP)
Return to page 1 or page 2
The process as of mid-2007 – Over 200 proposed amendments, but too little education
and assistance for public involvement.
Steve Nystrom is the City planner managing the project and two consulting firms have
been hired to conduct much of the project.
Two public "open houses" were held in December and January. Both were relatively
unstructured, and from these public meetings and e-mail submissions, the MiCAP team
produced an unfiltered and unweighted list of about 200 proposed amendments and a
bullet-list of individual comments from meeting participants. Most of the proposed
amendments came from a small group of individuals or organization representatives who
are familiar with land use code and processes. Other citizens, with less familiarity of the
code, may have been unsure how to express their concerns as revisions to the code.
The list of proposed amendments provided an essential starting point, of course. But what
wasn't adequately captured in the project record of these two open houses is that the
overwhelming preponderance of participants expressed strong support for two main
categories of code amendments:
• To protect established neighborhoods against the negative impacts of incompatible infill;
and
• To protect natural resources against inappropriate development
Thus, the project moved to the next step in the process – selection and prioritization of
proposed amendments – without adequate incorporation of this crucial public input.
Because many of the people who participated in the two "open houses" may not desire or
be able to attend the next public meeting(s) where the focus is on prioritization and
selection, the next phase of the process may not fully and accurately reflect public intent.
The next step: Selection and prioritization in the absence of adequate tools for public
comprehension and comment.
Initially, the project team has put forward only the idea of multiple "prioritization" methods
that would have ostensibly ranked proposed amendments in some "objective" manner.
The premise was that the Planning Commission could look at multiple lists of the
proposed amendments, each list ranked by different "objective" criteria, and then use
these various rankings to select and prioritize the proposed amendments.
A number of participants pointed out the flaws and/or inappropriateness of most of the
mechanical rating schemes that had been suggested. For example, one proposal was to
rank amendments higher if they contributed to higher urban density. But, obviously, higher
density isn't necessarily a good thing – tenement houses of the early 1900s were very
dense and were also recognized as an urban scourge. And low density isn't necessarily
bad – Parks and other public and private open spaces are essential to livable
communities, and yet are purposefully not dense. Impact on density would be a particularly
counterproductive way to rank proposed amendments in light of the strong public desire to
correct some of the mistakes made in recent years when maximum density standards
were dramatically increased without adequately considering the severe negative impacts
that would result in some areas. Here is the list of proposed criteria and a critique of them.
The whole notion of a semi-mechanical approach to scoring proposed amendments is
questionable. Such an approach is highly dependent on validated metrics and is extremely
sensitive to the details of how a "priority score" is calculated. For example, whether metrics
are additive or multiplicative, how they are weighted, how non-linear and discontinuous
relationships are treated, etc. This may sound "esoteric", but it's actually just basic science
and is essential for a fair and effective determination of which amendments have the best
chance of being adopted.
At the next public meeting on April 5, the Planning Commission held a "roundtable" to
discuss approaches to selecting amendments. Based on this meeting, the MiCAP project
team ranked all the amendments on three measures:
And based on these ratings, each amendment was assigned to one of three categories:
Continue on page 4
The process as of mid-2007 – Over 200 proposed amendments, but too little education
and assistance for public involvement.
Steve Nystrom is the City planner managing the project and two consulting firms have
been hired to conduct much of the project.
Two public "open houses" were held in December and January. Both were relatively
unstructured, and from these public meetings and e-mail submissions, the MiCAP team
produced an unfiltered and unweighted list of about 200 proposed amendments and a
bullet-list of individual comments from meeting participants. Most of the proposed
amendments came from a small group of individuals or organization representatives who
are familiar with land use code and processes. Other citizens, with less familiarity of the
code, may have been unsure how to express their concerns as revisions to the code.
The list of proposed amendments provided an essential starting point, of course. But what
wasn't adequately captured in the project record of these two open houses is that the
overwhelming preponderance of participants expressed strong support for two main
categories of code amendments:
• To protect established neighborhoods against the negative impacts of incompatible infill;
and
• To protect natural resources against inappropriate development
Thus, the project moved to the next step in the process – selection and prioritization of
proposed amendments – without adequate incorporation of this crucial public input.
Because many of the people who participated in the two "open houses" may not desire or
be able to attend the next public meeting(s) where the focus is on prioritization and
selection, the next phase of the process may not fully and accurately reflect public intent.
The next step: Selection and prioritization in the absence of adequate tools for public
comprehension and comment.
Initially, the project team has put forward only the idea of multiple "prioritization" methods
that would have ostensibly ranked proposed amendments in some "objective" manner.
The premise was that the Planning Commission could look at multiple lists of the
proposed amendments, each list ranked by different "objective" criteria, and then use
these various rankings to select and prioritize the proposed amendments.
A number of participants pointed out the flaws and/or inappropriateness of most of the
mechanical rating schemes that had been suggested. For example, one proposal was to
rank amendments higher if they contributed to higher urban density. But, obviously, higher
density isn't necessarily a good thing – tenement houses of the early 1900s were very
dense and were also recognized as an urban scourge. And low density isn't necessarily
bad – Parks and other public and private open spaces are essential to livable
communities, and yet are purposefully not dense. Impact on density would be a particularly
counterproductive way to rank proposed amendments in light of the strong public desire to
correct some of the mistakes made in recent years when maximum density standards
were dramatically increased without adequately considering the severe negative impacts
that would result in some areas. Here is the list of proposed criteria and a critique of them.
The whole notion of a semi-mechanical approach to scoring proposed amendments is
questionable. Such an approach is highly dependent on validated metrics and is extremely
sensitive to the details of how a "priority score" is calculated. For example, whether metrics
are additive or multiplicative, how they are weighted, how non-linear and discontinuous
relationships are treated, etc. This may sound "esoteric", but it's actually just basic science
and is essential for a fair and effective determination of which amendments have the best
chance of being adopted.
At the next public meeting on April 5, the Planning Commission held a "roundtable" to
discuss approaches to selecting amendments. Based on this meeting, the MiCAP project
team ranked all the amendments on three measures:
- Reason for change (corrective, perfective, adaptive)
- Complexity (simple, moderate, complex)
- Operational costs (low, medium, high)
And based on these ratings, each amendment was assigned to one of three categories:
- Minor resources required
- Significant-but-manageable resources
- Resources beyond MiCAP project scope
Continue on page 4
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
Jefferson Westside Neighbors