Tag:government
Destination 2040 – Culver Comprehensive Plan
After almost two years of work by local volunteers through various committees with the help of MACOG, the final draft of the new comprehensive plan is available for review here.
A community’s Comprehensive Plan should be revised every 5-10 years. I had advocated for the plan to be revised sooner (I thought Culver’s 2020 Vision had a nice ring to it!), since we completed many of the goals of the previous 2014 Comp Plan through the Stellar Communities funding. Unfortunately, like many other things, Covid stopped early progress on this.
It is generally the responsibility of the Plan Commission to create a new Comp Plan, but in this case, the Culver Plan Commission delegated this to the fledgling Culver Crossroads group. With the help of MACOG, Culver Crossroads held multiple meetings, public events and other opinion gathering methods to take the pulse of the community and set goals for the future. I’ve participated in this from the start and I believe the new plan captures a lot of vision needed for the future of Culver.
Once the document is finalized, the work needs to continue. The plan is worthless sitting on a shelf. It needs to be revisited often by all branches of Culver government so that its goals can be implemented and its guidance can be observed in the decision making process. Since it was created by the citizens, it should be respected as the new direction for Culver.
This is your last chance to be one of those citizens giving final input before it goes to the Plan Commission and Town Council for adoption. Even if it’s just catching a spelling error or punctuation error, let MACOG know, so this is the best document it can be. This will be our plan for the next 10 years and the face of Culver when new developers, businesses and residents consider locating in Culver.
Nonconforming
While I’m not a fan of conformity in everything, I do tend to be a rule follower. Yes or No rules are fairly easy to follow, but so many rules in the real world don’t easily fall into Black & White, but actually fall into gray areas. Even ones that are clearly yes or no, sometimes cause hardships that need consideration. In the world of Zoning, this is the reason for the Board of Zoning Appeals (BZA). When a building or property doesn’t fit neatly in the box laid out by the Zoning Ordinance, the BZA has the ability to inject some flexibility.
This is a recurring topic with the Culver Plan Commission and it came up again in the January meeting. There is always a laudable effort to reduce the load on the BZA, when the BZA is continually hearing similar requests on which it routinely grants variances. There is a whole chapter in the Culver Zoning Ordinance for this. Chapter 8 is titled, “Nonconforming Structures, Lots and Uses” to try and handle this, but there are times that it is still not enough. The Building Commissioner put forth a proposal that a structure should be allowed to be rebuilt on the same footprint without a variance. Again, this is something that is routinely granted. But I don’t think it is something where a variance should be waived.
As with a lot of our government where there are multiple individuals involved, the BZA is often in the business of finding reasonable compromises. The concept of allowing reconstruction on the same footprint is already a bit cumbersome in practice. Often, the reason for wanting to build back on the original footprint is because that allows continued violations of required setbacks, impervious surface standards or other ordinance rules. Sometimes this is a necessity due to lot sizes, but there can still be issues. Without review, the policy can be abused.
In the past, every nonconforming structure required a BZA review and variance in order to make any changes. The idea was for there to be a review to see if the proposed project could make the structure less nonconforming, if not bring it completely into compliance. This not only gave the BZA the opportunity to review the project, but allowed the neighboring property owners to voice support or concerns regarding the project. The current thinking is that this is unwieldy, but it served a useful purpose.
I have three main concerns with this proposal and the current ordinance:
- Chapter 8 is hard to read. It attempts to deal with nonconforming lots, nonconforming structures and nonconforming uses. Often two or more of these issues apply at the same time and the overlapping controls become confusing. For example, a structure housing a nonconforming use cannot be expanded, while a nonconforming structure can be expanded if it doesn’t increase the nonconformity, when the structure is nonconforming because it’s on a nonconforming lot. I would suggest that the chapter establish a hierarchy of priorities to help with these decisions. While each case is different, they are not completely unique.
- Chapter 8 should require some stringent guidelines regarding documentation. If reconstruction is to be allowed on the same footprint, then that footprint must require specific documentation before foundations are removed. Documentation should include locating existing overhangs and variations in the foundation line. There is also a provision that the height may not be increased, so this becomes another specific documentation requirement. Don’t allow 8′ ceilings to become become 10′ ceilings and low foundation walls don’t become daylighted basements.
- Lastly, I think there should be consideration given to destruction by Acts of God versus demolition for modernization. If a project is literally building back on the same foundation because the house was destroyed by fire or tornado, that is different than tearing everything out and rebuilding on the same footprint because the structure is old. If it is a 100% new structure and there is any way of reducing the nonconformity, even just by inches, the potential for becoming more in compliance should be evaluated and considered.
I think the Building Commissioner is right to ask for clarification and if enough detail is put into determining allowable reconstruction, this is a reasonable thing to delegate to his authority. As it’s written, it’s a minefield and I be concerned about uneven application.
Deposit Dilemma
One of the issues facing entry level workers is the issue of deposits. There is a deposit required for a rental unit. (In the case of a new home buyer, it’s the down payment.) There is a deposit required to get water turned on. There is a deposit required to get the gas turned on. There is a deposit required to get the electric turned on. For someone just starting out, this can be daunting. When someone moves, theoretically they’ll get their deposits back from the previous rental, but not before they have to put them down for the new place.
These have come about due to landlords, municipalities and utilities getting burned by tenants and homeowners skipping out on bills. For that reason, the justification for deposits is there. But… how often is this an issue in the first month when all the deposits are required? I would venture to say that 9 times out of 10, this is an end of occupancy issue, not a starting problem. Theoretically, the landlord renting to the tenant or the bank making the loan on a new purchase have vetted the tenant’s ability to afford their housing choice at least initially.
The new housing in Plymouth at Riverside Commons is geared towards lower wage earners. People that are good workers with steady income, but not at a level to afford good housing. These units are 100% electric and on city water and sewer, so there are only three deposits required. Unfortunately, Plymouth’s deposit requirement for water is $150. REMC, which provides the electric, has a deposit of $350, plus a $10 membership fee for the co-op. That’s $500+ in deposits without counting the rental deposit. This does not make it easy for a renter to move from substandard housing to the new units. The Paddocks in Culver runs into similar issues qualifying tenants, though I don’t think the start-up costs for water, sewer and electric are quite as high.
So, here’s what I would like to suggest for municipalities:
- Municipalities create an account for delinquent and non-payed utilities. To put a number at it, I would suggest $10,000. In lieu of just being a line item, put this into an interest bearing account, so there is some modest growth. (Placing it with Marshall County Community Foundation would be a way to double down on doing good and possibly earn a bit more.)
- Set the deposit rate at a number easily divided by 12. For example $120 in lieu of Plymouth’s $150.
- Ask for the full deposit at hook-up as done now, with an option for half down and the remainder paid as a surcharge on the first 6 water bills. A convenience fee of a couple dollars could be added if deemed necessary.
- The Clerk would be better able to answer this, but I would assume that non-payment rarely happens in the first couple of months, but is more likely at the end of service when the tenant or homeowner has moved. By then, the deposit would have been fulfilled.
- Put ALL utility deposits in the above interest bearing account.
- According to this site, there are 3,868 households in Plymouth. So, theoretically, there is an escrow account managed by the Clerk holding $580,200 in water & sewer deposits. If you reduced that to $120, as I suggested, then there’d still be $468,160 at any given time. Ignoring the current interest rate hovering around 5% (MCCF should be better), a 1% return would be $4,642 a year. That could cover quite a few no pays.
- According to this site, there are 592 households in Culver. (I think that’s pretty low and must be only counting fulltime residents.) Culver only has a $75 deposit, which is only about half again the cost of a minimum water/sewer bill. So, theoretically, there is an escrow account managed by the Clerk holding $44,400 in sewer & water deposits. Under the same conservative 1%, the return would be $444 per year. That’s not going to cover as much, but it would still cover some.
- I don’t know this, but I assume the current practice is to just mingle this money in the General Fund. That means the initial deposit is tracked for repayment, but any return (interest) on the General Fund account just goes back in the General Fund. If tracked separately, then that interest helps defer any non-payment costs. Obviously less effective in lower population municipalities, but still a factor.
- I also assume there are older accounts that had smaller deposit requirements, where the deposit has never risen. I’m just using round numbers, so the associated Clerks would probably want to set that straight, but I think the concept is reasonable. While I know that the utilities are supposed to be self-sufficient, every residential unit pays taxes to the municipality and over time, there is some reasonable cost of doing business.
- Put all late fees in this account as well. This would act as an additional hedge.
The above isn’t a panacea, but it would help low-income workers with a hand up that shouldn’t hurt the municipality much, if any. If the same principles could be applied to private utilities and maybe even rents, then it would be an equitable way of solving the insurance provided by deposits, while reducing the penalty those deposits put on low income individuals and families. This is just the beginning of a thought on a possible solution… But I think it is something worth consideration and refinement.
SCOTUS, Ambiguous Laws and Bureaucratic Rule Making…
A recent article from Kiplinger.com, “Will a Supreme Court Case About Fishing Water Down the IRS?”, intrigued me. The case has to do with the IRS. Kiplinger is a financial website, so their article concentrated on the obvious tax implications of IRS interpretations of obscure laws. The following two paragraphs caught my eye:
“The IRS and the U.S. Department of the Treasury are responsible for implementing tax regulations. Due to the complexity of tax law, they often have to fill gaps in tax legislation passed by Congress.
This is especially true when Congress drafts complex tax legislation at the last minute or amidst challenges on Capitol Hill, as is happening now with a bipartisan tax compromise proposed just weeks before tax season begins. In those and other instances, experts at the IRS and Treasury make interpretations and create rules to provide clarity to taxpayers.”
The implications of the rethinking the Chevron Deference, will have implications for a myriad of government agencies and their control over citizens. Our system of governance is based on compromise. Unfortunately, that often results in Congress passing compromised Laws, written in a manor that allows both sides to somewhat legitimately say, “I voted for this Law because I understood it to mean <blank>.” Under the Chevron Deference, this results in a bureaucratic agency effort to divine the meaning and write rules based on their interpretation.
In a perfect world, the agencies would do this even-handedly, with the rules being interpreted through an impartial lens. In reality, the agencies are controlled by the President’s Administration, leading to wild swings in policy based on the political party in office. This negates all of the compromise required to create the original Law.
Example #1 – The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB): This one hits hard for the construction industry. From their website, “The National Labor Relations Board is an independent federal agency vested with the power to safeguard employees’ rights to organize and to determine whether to have unions as their bargaining representative. The agency also acts to prevent and remedy unfair labor practices committed by private sector employers and unions.” In reality, board members are rotated and appointed by the President’s Administration. Because there is a general Democrat Union bias and a Republican Non-Union (Free Enterprise) bias, this board’s rulings swing wildly based on the political party in the White House and the appointments they make to this board.
Example #2 – Waters of the United States (WOTUS): For decades there have been rules protecting wetlands. All States have rules regarding wetlands, with varying degrees of protection, in attempts to balance property rights vs perceived public good. With theoretically good intentions, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) expanded the definition of WOTUS to include even minor wetlands, woodland wetlands, intermittent streams etc. bringing them under EPA control. In many cases this impeded or stopped development, and at times went so far as to deter existing farming practices. Currently, the courts have reigned this in, putting much of this control back in the hands of the States. In some cases this has caused a pendulum swing resulting in not only the repeal of current regulations, but even some long standing and accepted regulations on wetland protection Nationally and at the State level.
I could easily cite a half dozen more of which I’m aware. Suffice to say, that there could be big changes on the horizon… some good and some bad.
In theory, I’m very much in favor of a requirement that laws be clear. Jingoistic names for Bills should be ditched in favor of either a name that reflects what is included or just a number and no name at all. I’m also in favor of ending Christmas Tree Bills that have ridiculously unrelated items lumped together, under a name that often implies something completely different. (The Washington politicians that can say the Inflation Reduction Act did anything to reduce inflation with a straight face are truly scary!) For this reason I’d be in favor of the Line Item Veto, no matter which party is in office, as it would eliminate at least half the graft… (The Line Item Veto has been deemed unconstitutional, but it still seems like a good idea!)
Bureaucracies are a somewhat necessary evil, but they are never accused of expediting anything or being efficient. It would seem their main function is to perpetuate the bureaucracy. (Read up on the March of Dimes… They’re still around despite successfully completing their mission in 1949.) If the Chevron Deference is overturned, it will cause some serious shake-up. Some good could come of it though. Honesty and completeness in the crafting of Laws would be a good thing.
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March 11, 2024
Kevin Berger
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For the TL;DR crowd, I am not a fan of Daylight Savings Time and more specifically the silliness of changing clocks all the time. Here’s a new video that explains it and tells why it’s antiquated.
Even Neil deGrasse Tyson says it’s ridiculous now (below), and “No One Gives A Rat’s Ass”. We invented electricity. Duh!
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