GALLIGAN: Mayor responds to column about canal

BY TOM GALLIGAN

This is in response to Kelly Curran’s Feb. 2 column regarding the creation of the canal district. I’m not completely certain where to begin this response, because Curran’s column left a great number of information voids in a great number of areas.

I’ll begin with the one idea of Curran’s that I agree with. You do need to speak up and you do need to get involved. We will be seeking public input on the canal district’s development standards. We will advertise these meetings in a variety of ways and our hope is that honest input from the people who live and work here will help us develop a canal district that is meaningful to people who live here, tourists and businesses that operate within the district.

Curran seems to have a fundamental concern with government telling people what they can or cannot do on their own property. Government does this now. Building codes tell people how they can construct things. Zoning codes place a variety of restrictions on property, ranging from how a parcel of land may be used to how far structures must be from property lines to ensuring that property owners maintain their land and the structures on them. These standards are enacted and enforced in the names of public health and safety, not aesthetics and profit.

Since 1984, the city of Jeffersonville has had special development standards within its downtown historic district. These were updated in 1997. Special development standards were created several years ago along Utica Pike, at the request of a number of people who live there.

Curran states, “The plan as described would cause several adverse effects, namely a loss of diversity, harm to the poor and a loss of liberty.”

Here are some things to keep in mind when you consider Curran’s commentary:

First, there is no plan. We’ve defined an area, but know it will take months — including several opportunities for public input — to create the standards that will apply to the area. What we do know is that those standards must compliment what exists for the historic district which was first recognized by ordinance 26 years ago.

Second, the goal is to foster diversity in several ways. We want to further the idea of mixed uses that already exist in downtown today, which include residential, retail, restaurant and entertainment. We want the new development to increase the number of people who live downtown, strengthen our existing merchants by giving them access to new customers and provide everyone in the area with shopping, dining and entertainment opportunities that do not exist here now.

Third, Curran says bad things are certain to happen, but she provides no data or case studies to support her assertions, even as communities all over the world have adopted development standards. Clarksville has development standards for its side of Veterans Parkway. Who have those standards hurt? Louisville Metro Government has more than 20 neighborhood-specific development plans including three that include portions of the area known as the Highlands. Certainly, Curran wouldn’t try to convince us that the Highlands neighborhood is monolithic and oppressed.

Over the next few months, we plan on having a very public discussion about the canal district’s development standards. We will specifically seek input from the residents of the Rose Hill and Franklin Commons neighborhoods, downtown merchants, Jeffersonville Main Street Inc., and those with specific interests in historic preservation. Whether or not you belong to one or more of these groups, we want to hear from you, too.

I’d like to close by pointing out something that I think puts the rest of Curran’s column into its proper perspective. Curran expressed concern about government “dictating the color of street signs.”

Where do street signs come from now?

— Tom Galligan is mayor of Jeffersonville.