On Tuesday night the Common Council was asked to approve a Conditional Use Permit (CUP) that would allow for the construction of a new elementary school on Ryf Road should the referendum pass on April 7th. City staff, including the city attorney, have argued over the years that requests for CUP can only be denied on narrow grounds, including whether a proposed structure would create safety issues related to vehicular traffic.Therefore, it's not clear that the sustainability issues raised by Ron Hardy last year vis a vis the new school location could be used as grounds to deny a CUP. (Though if such grounds CANNOT be used to deny a CUP then the effort to devise a "Community Sustainability Plan" would appear to be at best a waste of time; if sustainability principles cannot be used as guides to help determine what is allowed in or out of a zone, then of what meaningful use are those principles?)
The majority on the council appeared satisfied with staff's interpretation of CUP guidelines, so we were left with thinking about the CUP in a more narrow traffic/safety sense. We don't yet have a traffic study, but were told that if we passed the CUP and a study later finds a problem, the applicants will be asked to make adjustments. We were told that it's common to approve CUP requests absent completed studies.
As the discussion was going on, I looked out into the audience and saw supporters and opponents of the recent deer cull. Then it hit me. The justification for the cull, in large part, was based on safety: Chief Greuel and Sgt. Sagmeister were especially insistent that deer/car accidents in the Osborn Ave. area present a clear and present danger to motorists. Meanwhile, Bryan Woodbury of the DNR, in an email to a cull opponent, said that Oshkosh will have to deal with deer overpopulation issues in a variety of areas, including Ryf Road. Citizens familiar with that area tell me that the amount of deer present there far outnumber the population found in the Quarry/Armory area.
Would the presence of deer near the school present a safety issue, not just for motorists but for the children? After all, not only have we spent an entire year hearing about the dangers of deer/car accidents, but last night we were presented with a scholarly essay suggesting that under certain conditions doe will attack and seriously injure humans. Given that we've consistenly had 6 council votes, the city manager, and the chief of police in favor of culling in large part on the basis of safety issues, I'm sincerely perplexed that they would not ask for a study of potential deer/human/vehicle interactions in the Ryf Rd. area before awarding a CUP.
D. Burich of the Planning Dept. and City Attorney Lorenson appeared to laugh off this concern, but deer interactions with schools are not that uncommon. Here's one example from Michigan, and another from New Jersey. A deputy police chief in Aberdeen, New Jersey, asked to explain why a deer would crash through a school window there, gave the obvious answer that too many humans do not want to hear: “Unfortunately, the area is so built up now that deer don’t have much place to go.”
For those willing to take the deer issue seriously, what this means is that we really do need to create a genuine deer management committee, charged with developing a serious deer management plan. The idea that we would build the school first and worry about the deer issue later seems backwards to me, especially given what we have been through in the last year.
2 comments:
It's somewhat odd that you have hit on something that I (mere Hausfrau that I am) have become a bit obsessed with simultaneous to my wish that the volume on the damn Rohloff thing was just dialed back a bit. This means I have to (kind of) agree with you while DISagreeing with you in the same space of time. I hate that.
It seems to me we're in some damn serious straits here (duh) but there's not much luxury of time, patience, or resources on any level. And we (municipal, state and fed. levels) have unending piles of really nasty problems with no obvious easy solutions. A lot will be required of our elected persons, and a ton of those persons are just not going to be equal to the task. I worry about us. End preamble.
Yeah, in a billion tiny ways old M.O.s will not fit the entirety of the problems we will be/are facing. More ways than just about granting CUPs. I had a conversation just days ago with a very experienced city employee type, where it hit me like a ton of bricks how the "this is how we've done it" and "what's been legal" way of making decisions is NOT going to fit with the newer sensibilities most eloquently exemplified by sustainability issues. The old rules truly do not apply to the new problems. So what if those old rules and behaviors got us to where we are now, and that a lot of us are miserable and indications of more misery to come abound, still, those rules are the only way we make decisions.
Worst case scenario I see our slow death by helpless and bewildered bureaucracy, where (for example) numerous brand new "old technology" facilities that most would admit are bad for the environment are never-the-less approved and built - not terribly unlike your potential school - because, based on the "old" laws NOT granting permission to build said facilities would be illegal/unthinkable/laughable. Just as new political behavior is unthinkable too. The new sensibilities do not fit into the old methodologies. The law changes very slowly and very painfully probably slower than the glaciers are melting. So that’s gonna be a problem. Probably legislation on stopping glacial melt will be passed after the last glacier has melted.
You said "seems backwards to me", yeah, the law, based on precedent, only looks backward so that's I guess how most governing bodies drive their cars - looking backwards. All sustainability talk is sheer poetry, grand and well-intentioned political gesturing with no real application. While the real codes, zoning regs and environmental laws do not fit that "new" value system. So now on the same day that a Madison politician makes public statements about how we are set to meet our new sustainable future and that utilities will grant credits for energy from (as yet imagined) wind power here in WI, wind turbines are voted down "cuz they're ugly",but a TIF is in place and ground is about to be broken on OLD style and pollution-happy mining and processing operations with profits that will shower the same old same old Oil Boys with cash (and the local gov’t with a wee bit o’ taxes after a few years) onwards to a period of 30 years or so. All the while happily spewing crap that meets environmental standards written years and years back. But local officials feel they have to grant permission and do the TIF thing and probably attend ground-breaking ceremonies with gold-painted shovels in hand and smile for the camera too. Then they can take their kids to the doctors for their asthma check-ups afterwards.
but gawd! NO! the law and "procedure" or "current best practices" do NOT care about Ron's concerns for the FUTURE, they care only for the PAST, and what has always been done. So it's 10 acres per school and new subdivisions, bussing, and a crumbling city center. Now have the clerk go to the same grey metal drawer, get the same Wilson-Jones Business Form 3632, sub-section B first printed in 1952 and fill it out and call it good. Yes yes yes You’re supposed to worry about the deer and the melting ice caps and particulates later. Way later. But uh-oh! what if there IS no later? the Goddess of Municipality and her minions, the Pixies of the Picayune do not care. Build the school, build the particulate belching smokestacks, and dig the frac sand mines all over northern WI. The Plan commissions have decided, the same as they’ve always done and always will...
(p.s. no I did not have a snoot full of coke while writing this, just PM 2.5 particulates)
How can we create a "greenbelt" around the City of Oshkosh, which would limit urban sprawl, and begin to reduce car dependency and greenhouse gas emissions from transportation?
"New California Land-use Law's Message: Build Near Transit" (ICLEI-USA)
San Francisco Chronicle
November 28, 2008
http://www.icleiusa.org/news-events/new-california-land-use-laws-message-build-near-transit/
Green belt
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_belt
Obviously, even though some of the School Board members have publicly denied this, building a new school on Ryf Road would promote urban sprawl and make residents even more car dependent. That is NOT good. Here is a relevant passage from the latest IPCC report on GHG mitigation:
5.5.1 Surface transport
"A wide array of policies and strategies has been employed
in different circumstances around the world to restrain vehicle
usage, manage traffic congestion and reduce energy use, GHGs,
and air pollution. There tends to be considerable overlap among
these policies and strategies, often with synergistic effects.
The recent history almost everywhere in the world has been
increasing travel, bigger vehicles, decreasing land-use densities
and sprawling cities. But some cities are far less dependent
on motor vehicles and far denser than others, even at the
same incomes. The potential exists to greatly reduce transport
energy use and GHG emissions by shaping the design of cities,
restraining motorization and altering the attributes of vehicles
and fuels. Indeed, slowing the growth in vehicle use through
land-use planning and through policies that restrain increases in
vehicle use would be an important accomplishment. Planning
and policy to restrain vehicles and densify land use not only
lead to reduced GHG emissions, but also reduced pollution,
traffic congestion, oil use, and infrastructure expenditures and
are generally consistent with social equity goals as well."
--IPCC Working Group III Report "Mitigation of Climate Change", chapter 5, pg 366.
http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/ar4-wg3.htm
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