If Georgetown City Hall is intentionally trying to make citizens mad, it's doing a bang-up job.
From building inspections to sign violations, city employees have moved from one confrontation to another with private citizens often threatening litigation and being threatened themselves.
Tuesday night's meeting of the Georgetown Planning Commission left residents of the neighborhood on Church Street Extension and Stevenson Road both angry and bewildered after they were told they would have no say in a development planned near their homes.
Pin Oaks Apartments is a 28-unit affordable housing complex planned for a wooded tract near the Hickory Knoll Apartments by Connelly Development.
It's a quiet neighborhood of brick and wooden houses that is bordered by Highmarket Street and the IP Canal.
Residents are rightly worried about their property values being adversely affected by a housing complex that will increase traffic, litter and other undesirable factors.
Rather than allay their concerns on Tuesday, City Administrator Steve Thomas told residents he had just learned that the development had been changed to townhouses and there was nothing to stop it. In fact, there was nothing to discuss. The 28 units, according to city ordinance, are considered a townhouse development and not group housing as originally proposed. He said the ordinance allows city staff to approve townhouses.
The city's ordinance defines a townhouse as "buildings containing more than two dwelling units. Townhouse units located on individual lots of record shall not be considered multifamily units."
The switch to townhouses from apartments might allow city staff to make the decision, but the decision to allow developers to move forward had already been made. City Planner Sabrina Morris had issued the building permits for the development, according to a story in the Georgetown Times.
Thomas was wise to pull Morris from the line of fire Tuesday, trying to make light of it by saying he had been a history major in college and found this issue intriguing.
The history of this project is that nobody seemed to know that the land was zoned R-3 or when it was changed from R-1. Morris found a map from 1981 showing R-3.
A Planning Commission meeting was scheduled, canceled for lack of a quorum, rescheduled, canceled and rescheduled last Tuesday. At that meeting, residents demanded to know when the property was rezoned from R1 to R3.
The Planning Commission agreed to postpone the vote until this week to try and find when the rezoning occurred.
Apparently all those meetings were just for show. The developers had their building permits.
City Council member Peggy Wayne angrily confronted Thomas after the Planning Commission adjourned and said the townhouse deal looked shady.
Thomas said he did not know the development could be classified as townhouses until about 4 p.m. Tuesday when he consulted with an unnamed attorney.
In the end, neighborhood residents came out as well as they could have reasonably expected with such a development. The units were reduced from 56 to 28 on land that is properly zoned, though unbeknownst to most people at the time. Owners of the property are within their legal rights to do as they please in developing it.
In this instance, Thomas knew the developers had a reputation for suing municipalities -- and winning -- to build units under the federal Fair Housing Act of 1968.
The larger picture here is that city government is perceived as continually finding itself at odds with Georgetown's citizens rather than serving them.