Editor’s View: With development debates on horizon, can city forestall acrimony?

A few days ago, I drove past the future home of IBM on LeMone Industrial Boulevard to catch up on the changing landscape. Construction workers were getting the industrial building ready for IBM to open in November, while around the corner road workers were getting close to finishing the Maguire Boulevard extension to Stadium Boulevard at Crosscreek Center.
Two years ago, the acrimony over local development reached a fever pitch and was focused on this strip of land along U.S. Highway 63. The City Council first rejected and then, after mediation, approved commercial construction plans for Crosscreek, which initially included a car dealership, a Taco Bell restaurant, a Landmark Bank branch and a Break Time convenience store. Later that spring, the City Council voted 4-3 to build the extension of Maguire Boulevard from the LeMone Industrial Park to Stadium Boulevard.
The debate over development in Columbia has died down considerably since then. That’s not because the city has forged community agreements on policies covering infrastructure cost sharing, annexation, rezoning, neighborhood involvement and other issues that fuel disagreements.
There simply hasn’t been much to argue about. Residential and commercial construction has slowed to a trickle, aside from government and university building. There were only four development plans submitted to the city in 2009, compared with a few dozen annually during the building boom that reached its zenith in 2006. Crosscreek is still an enormous patch of bare land.
Now the economy is rebounding, and City Planning Director Tim Teddy said there are signs that the pace of building is picking up.
Next month the City Council will again consider the long-contested issue of rezoning 271 acres near Richland Road in east Columbia, and the construction of the new high school in northeast Columbia will be a catalyst for residential and commercial projects. There are two dozen housing projects in the city’s pipeline. Developers of the Bellwood residential subdivision at the end of West Broadway recently submitted a final plat, a step that has rarely been taken in the past two years.
The opening of IBM and the Linen King commercial laundry at LeMone, the completion of the Maguire extension in August and the signing of other industrial development deals in the works will also stimulate building projects.
One of the lightning rods for the Crosscreek dispute was the decision to clear-cut the 70 acres where two branches of Hinkson Creek come together. Several City Council members referred to the expanse of bare dirt as the “moonscape.” Council members and neighbors also complained that neighborhood associations should have had a stronger role in the decision-making process.
Will the heated arguments resume when development restarts? Probably, but much has changed since then.
Local government administrators took advantage of the lull in development and worked on long-term planning that could forestall some of the typical acrimony that arises during City Council meetings. Then, in April, voters changed the Council’s balance of power by choosing development-friendly candidates.
Earlier this year, the Council approved the northeast Columbia area development plan with the high school construction project as its centerpiece. Later this month, the city will hold its fourth public hearing on the east Columbia development plan, which covers 21 square miles and includes the road that eventually will connect Stadium Boulevard with Interstate 70.
The city is also embarking on a cost-benefit analysis of development. City Manager Bill Watkins came to the last Planning and Zoning Commission meeting to talk about the infrastructure cost review process. A group working on a comprehensive plan for development is holding meetings twice a month, and next week there will be intensive planning and public meetings on two downtown areas ripe for development.
The Planning and Zoning Commission and the Environment and Energy Commission in the next month will consider proposed modifications to land disturbance rules. As for the other major issue that caused hard feelings during the Crosscreek dispute, the planning department is working on ways to improve the relationship between developers and neighborhood associations.
“We’ve committed more of our resources to do advance planning,” Teddy told the CBT. “We hope we can have a better process now to engage neighborhood interests earlier and more productively.”
Although there will never be harmony between growth-wary residents and developers, there might be less discord when Council must make development decisions. The city planners have learned some lessons and set better ground rules, and now it’s up to the participants to play nice.