Community/City Hearing Experiences

[Ryan Farrow]

A few hours ago I was at a public hearing for an office building development. It was at Tempe’s city hall and a re-development review commission was there to approve or deny the architects revised plan. He presented renderings of the on-going project and the council approved his plan.

As golf course architects do you have to go through the same reviews or is up to the developers to get approval for projects? If you do present what are you general feelings about the process and what kind of preparations do you make for this type of review? Have you had any interesting stories or heated arguments?

[Forrest Richardson]

My first project went all the way to the Arizona Supreme Court. Yes, I occasionally have to endure hearings!
 

Tonight's was at Paradise Valley Town Hall.

[Ryan Farrow]

It sounds like you have a blast at these things. I remember reading about Phantom Horse in the interviews at GCA. Did that experience make you second guess your decision to make your profession change?

And if you have any hearings for Papago Park it would be nice to stop by and see what’s going on with your project. I still need to get out and finally play it. I have heard great things about the course, when it was 1980.  

[Forrest Richardson]

I must admit that long public processes are frustrating. Especially when there are people who do not understand what is being proposed...or who refuse to believe any developer would ever build something decent. Papago is not yet at the public process...thankfully I feel it will not be an issue at all. You should play it. It is among the best Arizona courses that fits the affordable category.

[Ryan Farrow]

Does anyone else want to share some stories?

[Craig Sweet]

When I was on our city council I was shocked the first couple of times we held a hearing on a development.

Generally, the developer would come in with a hillside development of one kind or another, and have no drainage plan at all. They would say, we're not spending the money up front. Approve the project first, and then we'll sit down with your planning and public works departments and work out the drainage issues.

For some reason this had become routine. The first time I tried to put an end to it, you would have thought I had called Ben Laden a folk hero!  

The problem, other than developers use to having their way, was a citizen board (the planning board), and elected officials  that really didn't understand state subdivision regs, and never really wanted to know what was going on. Just build it and get the hell out of here was their mantra.

[Bruce Katona]

I'm on the other side of the coin, working for a developer (both housing and golf courses).  The public process is very fustrating as most of the local citizens who serve on the Planning or Zoning Commission are well meaning, but not design professionals who really understand planning, site design or drainage.  They include a great number of NIMBY's (not in my back yard).  The motto is" now that I live here (whereever that is) we don't need to let anyone else into the town/city/county.

I never want to embaress anyone in public, but many time the lack of knowledge exhibited by local officials is just not professional.

The system for review set up in Florida and Maryland, where planning is done on a county level, rather than the municipal level, is much better.  You have much more professional involvement from the staff trained to review plans for both being complete and addressing valid site concerns (runoff, erosion, drinking water protection, wetlands preservation, etc.

[Craig Sweet]

I have no problem with citizen planning boards, but hey, they should, at the very least, read the subdivision regs. and have a basic understanding that ka-ka flows downhill.

The NIMBY's are going to come out everytime for everything. Typically, they will wait until the final hearing, and the evening the governing body is going to vote on the project, show up, and say, this is the first they have heard of the project.  

[Jeff_Brauer]

My experience is that the government officials are quite reasonable. They know their own rules, and the developer is either meeting them or not.

It the general public that can be a real wild card, and sometimes, they can carry the day.  What politician wouldn't be tempted to backpedal off of something that has basically been approved by staff and in private council sessions in response to a constituent?  

The other problem is that most of the public doesn't follow the process well, but jump in if there is some sensational newspaper story about a project.  Thus, you can end up answering the same questions over and over again. At Giant's Ridge (first course) after we had done 26 routings to get near approval, a new member of the public seeing the routing, and assuming it was the first, asked if we shouldn't "slow down and do some more study."

There are many interesting stories, most too long and boring to relate here.  Lots of sitting around listening to people speak about stuff you would rather not hear. However, most golf architects who are just talking about "things" don't take long to get to horror stories they have endured in the permitting process.

The short versions of two of my most interesting were a meeting where the State of Minnesota threatened to sue itself (actually one state agency over another, but it sounds funnier) and a meeting where the Audubon Society of Houston told the Corps of Engineers that they (Audubon) knew Corps rules better than the Corps did.

[Forrest Richardson]

Woman at hearing: I CERTAINLY DON'T WANT THEM TO BUILD THAT DAMNED GOLF COURSE BEHIND MY HOUSE...THE JAVILINA WILL STOP COMING OUT OF THE HILLS...MY HUSBAND AND I LOVE THE WILD ANIMALS...THAT'S WHY WE MOVED HERE.

[Time elaspes...about 18 months]

(Same) Woman at (Subsequent) Hearing: YOU NEED TO DO SOMETHING!!! THERE ARE SO MANY JAVILINA COMING DOWN TO NIBBLE THE GRASS THAT WE FEEL SCARED AT NIGHT!!! I DON'T WANT TO SHOOT THOSE ANIMALS...BUT I WILL IF THERE GET TO BE TOO MANY OF THEM. BY APPROVING THIS GOLF COURSE YOU ARE ATTRACTING ANIMALS FROM ALL OVER!!!

[Craig Sweet]

The other night after a basketball game at the University of Montana, a girl was trampled by a deer right in front of the field house, in front of thousands of fans leaving the game.

She was hospitalized with a fractured skull.

But golly gee, those deer are sooooo cute! Please don't shoot them.

[Jeff_Brauer]

"I'm worried about that hole that plays across the water. What if a golf ball hits a fish in the head?"

In a hearing one year after opening of a course required to monitor nearby lakes, independent labs announce that no traces of any chemicals used on the golf course have been found anywhere in the lake.  A lady stands up and shouts, "Yeh but they should be required to do better than zero pollution...."

In another meeting, someone tried to blame a golf course for polluting a stream about 100 miles away, and UPstream of the course......

My favorite was the lady protesting a golf course as a giveaway for the rich. An announcement came that a Mercedes had its lights on, and she got up immediately to go outside......

[Ryan Farrow]

hahahhaha. This is the kind of stuff i like to hear. How do you guys respond to questions like these. I would have a hard time not laughing in their face.

[Jason Topp]

When Jesse Ventura was Mayor of a Twin Cities suburb he had a constant war with members of the staff and (I believe) certain counsel members.  Meetings would go late into the night.  An experienced lawyer I worked with said that his entire strategy was to get on the agenda late, because everyone was so tired by that point that the proposal passed.

A friend appeared at a hearing in a small town, only to have all 5 people in the small room light up and start smoking.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Actually, I have really, really wanted to throw a quarter at some and tell them to call someone who gave a **** what they thought.  But cooler heads prevailed, and I will save that one for my LAST project.......intentional or otherwise.

[Ryan Farrow]

I dont know if a quater can get it done now a days. Maybe you can  just throw your cell phone at their head. It is Sprints new security feature.

[Emmy]

After spending 16 years total on a planning commission, design review board and assessment appeals board in Nor Cal, the "best times" were after the meeting, when the whole gang gathered for a toast or two (while trying to avoid any  violation of the Brown Act).

Looking back, most of the planning commission meetings went way too long.They should have adopted a pace-of-play, I mean, pace-of-say program at city hall.

[Craig Sweet]

We were doing committee work on a proposed subdivision and the adjoining property owners were concerned about their "views" of the clear cut Montana mountains. So the developer came back the following week with some new plan, moved some houses around and left "view corridors" for the complaining neighbors.

They were happier, their precious views would not be compromised too much.

And then the committee started talking about streets, sidewalks and boulavards etc....and trees in the boulavards....

The neighbors went ballistic!!!  NO TREES!!!!! They'll block the views!!!!

I lost it.  They were stunned. But they sat quietly after that.