Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Moore Responds

In a letter to the editor in today's Register-Star, Common Council President Don Moore responds to Timothy O'Connor's assertion that the Common Council voted on the zoning revisions without an adequate map that defined the zoning districts: "Map does exist." According to Moore, Figure 27 in the LWRP (reproduced here) is that map.

The map in question has serious shortcomings as it pertains to the extension of the Core Riverfront District to include the "causeway." It does not define the width of this extension; it does not accurately represent how the "causeway" connects back to the larger Core Riverfront District. Both considerations should have been serious concerns for the Common Council in approving this zoning, but apparently they weren't.      

1 comment:

  1. Moore words ...

    But why is Mr. Moore opening his mouth and opening himself to further easy attack?

    Hadn't Gossips already argued - and won - changes to other bad maps in the draft LWRP?

    (There's an important distinction to recognize between those map changes made to the Final LWRP and other inaccuracies pointed out at this blog which Mr. Moore and the council permitted themselves to overlook. Care to guess?)

    If words from "public servants" like Mr. Moore were sufficient, then an image (a map) wouldn't have to become the actual law to begin with.

    Everyone knows that LWRP Figure 27 is a joke. As one colleague said, it looks as though it was made by children with crayons.

    For months the public waited patiently to see an official Zoning Map with an accurate overlay of the tax map; i.e., a proper tax map. (Try Googling images for "tax map" to see what they're supposed to look like.)

    But LWRP Figure 27 is worse than a fudge. Mr. Moore and the incompetent council break at least one law with the assistance of their sketch of a map. The law they contravene is called SEQRA, and the infringement is called "segmentation."

    In Mr. Moore's letter to the Editor, he displays either disingenuousness or ignorance (or both), since he must know that the law-breaking he's endorsing cannot be demonstrated on a sketch as vague and inaccurate as Figure 27.

    Each unanswered question adds up to a component of a law that was passed sight unseen. The vague and wrong data presented in Figure 27 are worse than having no map: they provide cover with which to break the law.

    Shame on the Common Council (save one alderman) for being so sneaky and irresponsible!

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