My dad always told us that if we didn’t vote, we didn’t have the right to complain.

I spent four hours at a City Council meeting on Wednesday.  There is a builder that wants to rezone and area in my neighborhood just Northeast of where I live.  He wants to be able to build several apartment complexes there.  For him it is all about the bottom line.  Although I completely understand that for him it is business, he sure doesn’t understand that for us it is about community. 

                

I spent my years in an apartment.  I know that there is a need and a purpose for them.  However when I purchased my house I specifically looked at the area and zoning because I wanted to live in a neighborhood.  Yes, I am talking about the 1950’s style neighborhood where everyone knows who lives next door and who is driving down the street and where the kids freely play pick up games in the road.  I wanted a neighborhood where people mow their lawns and talk to one another over their backyard fences and where I felt safe running, walking and biking by myself.

I found that in the neighborhood that I purchased my house.  Everything close was zoned for only residential units with the largest being zoned for 8 homes per acre (meaning townhomes).  It meant a fairly stable area because most, if not all, would own the home that they were in.  It meant less traffic because there were no high rise housing that raises the density of people in a small area.  It meant I found what I was looking for. 

That was being threatened.  In the area that he would like to be zoned there is not any major access road which means that not only would it raise the population of people, but that they would all be using our neighborhood roads to get back there.  We live on private roads meaning that the City doesn’t maintain them, we as an HOA maintain them.  It was not what I desired for my quiet little neighborhood that I found to be almost exactly what I was looking for when I purchased.

Going into the meeting I found that I wasn’t the only one that felt this way.  A great neighborhood is exactly what I have found.  We filled the City Council room.  We spent three of those four hours standing up and fighting for our rights.  My reasons seemed small compared to those with children in the already overcrowded school district here.  However it is still always a scary thing when money is involved and typically speaks louder than the hundreds of citizens that it actually affects. 

Luckily we had three great City Council members that took us seriously and understood that we are the ones that live here and we are the ones that decide whether or not they have a job next election.  There were a couple of other that didn’t quite get that point and the money was ringing in their minds.  After our four hour meeting the Council finally decided to table the rezoning.  The contractor was visibly not happy.  They didn’t deny it though which means that we still have a fight on our hands, but now it is time to start some petitions and make sure the numbers are even higher on our side at the next meeting.

Some people don’t think that we can make a difference when we vote and are involved.  I suppose it is because they never try.