Archive for the ‘City Politics’ Category
Sewer backups, stormwater regs put city in a bind
Posted by admin on Thursday, February 10th, 2011 Categories:
A large crowd showed up to the Boone County Commission chambers Wednesday night to discuss a dirty topic: sewer overflows and their connection with recent stormwater regulations mandated by the Environmental Protection Agency. A three-person panel of Bill Weitkemper, Columbia sewer superintendent; Karen Miller, Boone County southern district commissioner; and Ken Midkiff, conservation chair of [Click Here]
Council clears way for huge downtown apartment
Posted by admin on Tuesday, February 8th, 2011 Categories:
City Council’s Monday-night-approval of zoning enabling a 100-unit, four-story apartment building could well boost downtown’s population by nearly 300 people next year. The City Council unanimously gave the go ahead to rezone 2.5 acres from residential to open commercial at the corner of College Avenue and Walnut Street. The Odle family, owners of Trittenbach Development, [Click Here]
Council cracks down on rental units
Posted by admin on Wednesday, January 19th, 2011 Categories:
The city beefed up its oversight of rental units Tuesday night, though one council member expressed concern that the new regulations would be too onerous on landlords. The council voted 5-2 to amend the city code to keep a rental permit from being transferred to a new owner when a property is sold. New owners [Click Here]
City sticks with building code commission’s regs
Posted by admin on Wednesday, January 19th, 2011 Categories:
The City Council Tuesday night decided against hiring an outside consultant to review revised building codes recently finished by the 20-member Building Construction Codes Commission, foregoing a process that could have substantially changed the commission’s recommendations. Every three years, the city updates its own construction regulations as the International Code Council revises national codes. Columbia’s [Click Here]
P&Z takes issue with rezoning for downtown apartment building
Posted by admin on Friday, January 7th, 2011 Categories:
The Columbia Planning and Zoning Commission voted against a proposal to rezone land at the corner of College Avenue and Walnut Street so a development company could build a four-story, 100-unit apartment building on the downtown site. After opponents cited concerns with traffic congestion, lack of parking and lax zoning restrictions, the commission Thursday night [Click Here]
Council briefed on IBM storm water variance
Posted by admin on Tuesday, December 7th, 2010 Categories:
At the City Council’s work session last night, the city staff added an additional report to the end of the agenda. The report was a “response to the Nov. 26, 2010 Columbia Business Times article regarding the IBM site along Lemone Industrial Boulevard.” If you didn’t read it, the article pointed out that the IBM [Click Here]
Richland annexation prompted valuable dialogue throughout process
Posted by admin on Monday, December 6th, 2010 Categories:
Tony Black has been showing up at city hall periodically for about two years. As the president of the Lake of the Woods Neighborhood Association when developer David Atkins put forward his proposal to annex 270 acres into the city along Richland Road, he’s been the face of the resistance through the long, strange process. [Click Here]
City finance director gives final budget briefing
Posted by admin on Monday, November 29th, 2010 Categories:
In a farewell address of sorts, Columbia Finance Director Lori Fleming gave the City Council one last overview of the budget Monday night before she heads south of the border to take a job with the U.S. Treasury Department in Honduras. Fleming, whose last day is Friday, has been Columbia’s finance director since 1995. In [Click Here]
Making sure the charrette isn’t a charade
Posted by admin on Tuesday, October 26th, 2010 Categories:
At their first meeting since the downtown charrette was released a little over two weeks ago, the Downtown Leadership Council sat down to figure out the hardest part of any plan: implementing it. The charrette is a planning document for downtown, born of an intense planning exercise overseen by professional consultants and downtown stakeholders. What [Click Here]
Council approves A.W. Smith office proposal
Posted by admin on Tuesday, October 19th, 2010 Categories:
Should City council members be paid. Well, would you spend two hours getting lectured by perturbed residents? Because that’s what happened Monday night as the council considered another development proposal on the fringe of an established neighborhood. As development proposals continue to emerge as the economic freeze thaws, council members will have plenty more to [Click Here]
Action on Richland Road tabled… again
Posted by admin on Monday, October 18th, 2010 Categories:
The City Council Monday night went much like most of the public hearings concerning the Richland Road proposal — long and lacking closure. Monday night was supposed to be the climactic finale of a process that began two years ago. Instead, the council decided to table the proposal yet again. All that changed was the [Click Here]
Infill infighting: Great Hangups and Leawood Plaza
Posted by admin on Monday, October 4th, 2010 Categories:
The Great Hangups saga came to an end Monday night, with the City council voting down the contentious rezoning proposal. But the long battle over land use at the intersection of West Boulevard and Broadway, which has been trying to make its way through the city’s zoning process for nearly a year, may be the [Click Here]
Glimpsing the council’s true colors
Posted by admin on Wednesday, May 19th, 2010 Categories:
One of the more interesting council discussions I’ve heard in the last couple of years happened Monday night. Before the council was a proposal to rezone about 20 acres of land near the city’s power plant on Business Loop 70. The area is surrounded by industrial zoning, yet it is zoned for residential use and [Click Here]
P&Z appointment breaks precedent
Posted by admin on Wednesday, May 19th, 2010 Categories:
In a departure from its usual practice, the City Council Monday night opted not to reappoint one of the Planning and Zoning Commission’s most senior members. Nearly a dozen people applied for the two open spots on P&Z, one of the city’s most important commissions. Both commissioners whose terms had expired reapplied for their positions. [Click Here]
Tabling the Planning and Zoning Commission
Posted by admin on Friday, April 9th, 2010 Categories:
With the ouster from the council of Jerry Wade and Karl Skala, both former Planning and Zoning Commissioners, the zoning-review body could wane in influence. Over the last three years while those two sat on the council, the body’s recommendations seemed to carry more weight than in the past. Wade spearheaded a change to the [Click Here]
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