Day: July 6, 2017

Good Governance

Milton Charter and Municipal Autonomy

Posted on by Milton Coalition
1200px-Stadtrechtsurkunde_Flensburgs_von_1284_(The_Town_Charter_of_Flensburg)
Medieval Age City Charter

July 7, 2017

(Note:  The last paragraph of this post was edited to provide additional information on home rule reapportionment.

Yesterday’s blog post explained Milton’s Comprehensive Land Use Plan (CLUP) and its importance.  Today’s blog explains Milton’s Charter, the other important cornerstone of Milton’s government.  Milton’s Charter is akin to a municipal version of the United States Constitution.  The Charter establishes the foundation and structure of Milton’s government.  Municipal charters are granted by the Georgia General Assembly.

As with the U.S. Constitution, changing Milton’s Charter is serious matter.  Changes to the charter should follow principles of good governance.  Changes should be made through a process that is transparent, honest, fair, deliberative, rigorous, democratic, and participatory.  Furthermore, the changes should be made through home rule, which the Georgia Municipal Association describes as “a doctrine under which municipalities and counties are delegated the autonomy to act with respect to their own affairs and without the need for specific legislative authorization.”  In Milton, this means changes to the charter are accomplished either 1) through the Charter Commission or 2) through City Council.  These are the two accepted/standard methods for changing the Charter.

The Charter Commission is a six-person appointed committee that meets every 5 years.  (Think of the meeting of the Charter Commission as being like a quasi-constitutional convention.)  Staff suggests charter changes that are then reviewed, revised, and approved by City Council.  The suggested changes are then forwarded to the Charter Commission for review and revision.  However, the Charter Commission has the authority to make other changes not suggested by staff and Council.  The Charter Committee’s recommendations are returned to Council for ratification and then forwarded to the Georgia General Assembly for final approval, which is usually perfunctory.

The second standard means for changing the Charter is through legislative action by City Council.  For example, reapportionment of election districts is typically effected through a City Council ordinance (Home Rule Reapportionment O.C.G.A. § 36-35-4.1.)  For certain matters, such as laws that affect the exercise eminent domain, additional approval from the Georgia General Assembly is necessary; Milton’s City Council cannot act unilaterally to change the law in these matters.  However, state assembly approval is intended to supplement, not supplant, action by the municipality.  The default position is to permit cities to govern themselves without interference from the state, except in cases where intervention is needed to remedy obviously poor governance practices at the local level.

Tim Becker

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Smart Land Use

Council Needs to Strictly Uphold Milton’s Comprehensive Land Use Plan (CLUP)

Posted on by Milton Coalition

comprehensive-planning

July 6, 2017

If you spend any time observing land use proceedings (e.g., rezoning hearings) of our City government, you are likely to hear reference to The CLUP.  CLUP stands for Comprehensive Land Use Plan—sometimes shortened to Comprehensive Plan.  The CLUP is the City of Milton’s long-range strategic plan for land use.  While it is not a legally binding document, it is a critical document as it captures the community’s preferences for land use.  Furthermore, the CLUP is reflected in the City’s zoning and other land use rules and regulations, which are legally binding.  The American Planning Association describes the CLUP as follows:

The comprehensive plan should be the centerpiece of the community planning program.  It is the means through which an organizing and sustainable vision can be provided for the community . . . The comprehensive plan is the vision framework within which other types of plans and implementing tools should operate . . . the comprehensive plan must accurately reflect a consensus and serve as a coherent vision for the community.

Why-I-created-a-Vision-Statement-for-my-Child-with-Special-Needs

Milton’s CLUP is a fairly detailed document and weighs in at a hefty 82 pages.  There are many elements to the CLUP.  It begins with a profile of Milton that presents a lot of data presented in graphs.  Much of this data is demographic in nature.  The CLUP also sets forth a vision and a mission for land use.  A considerable portion of the CLUP consists of setting forth objectives for various land use issues, such as development patterns or housing.  Given its importance, transportation and mobility is the subject of an entire section of the CLUP.  All of these previous sections are a lead-in to the most important sections of the CLUP, which deal with community/land use maps and narratives that provide detailed explanations of community preferences for land use.  The future land use map is particularly critical, as it provides a specific land-use designation for most parcels of land.  (We will have more to say about this below.)  Finally, the CLUP provides a work plan for achieving the vision, mission, and objectives of the CLUP.

The CLUP is updated every 5 years through an intensive 12-month process that provides many and substantive opportunities for citizen input.  This includes multiple workshops with citizens and liberal public comment at meetings of the Comprehensive Plan Advisory Committee (CPAC).  The CPAC is a 17-member stakeholder group that reflects diverse views of the community and is charged with incorporating the community’s preferences into the CLUP.  The CLUP was most recently updated in 2016.

consensus-accuracy

It is critical to understand that the CLUP is different from other government-generated documents in that it is directly a product of citizen input.  The CLUP reflects community consensus on land use.  This community consensus is why it is so important that the City, particularly City Council, not deviate from the CLUP, for to do so is to deny the will of citizens.  The CLUP, more than any other City document, truly manifests the “consent of the governed.”  Accordingly, it was surprising that 2 Council Members, Lusk and Kunz, voted against approval of the 2016 CLUP, essentially dismissing the citizen consensus on land use achieved over a period of 12 months and reflected in the CPAC’s 17-0 approval of the CLUP.  Mr. Lusk’s and Mr. Kunz’s opposition revolved around their advocacy of cluster housing in unsewered areas of Milton—a proposal favored by developers that citizens have repeatedly and overwhelmingly opposed.

Similarly, it was surprising when Council Member Thurman, the Council liaison to the CPAC, questioned the authority of the CLUP in her vote to approve a rezoning that violated the CLUP’s future land use map.  The City of Milton has chosen (deliberately we assume) to use parcel-specific maps for future land use for most areas of Milton, as opposed to character-based maps.  This means that there is little flexibility in how a specific parcel is to be developed.  Most parcels have a specific land-use designation that dictates how those parcels should be developed.  During the 2016 CLUP update process, quite a few citizens invested time to ensure Milton’s land-use designations reflected their preferences.  Accordingly, it was disconcerting to citizens to see community consensus on land use (achieved just 7 months earlier) so cavalierly disregarded by Council in its approval of a rezoning (to higher density) of 3 parcels on Hopewell Road in May 2017.

The central point of this discussion is that the CLUP is a critically important document that reflects community consensus on land use and accordingly needs to be strictly upheld by Council.  Council approval of rezonings that clearly violate the CLUP needs to stop!  Perhaps, it is time that citizens send Council a message in this fall’s elections that we are serious about the community’s prerogatives being respected at Council, starting with the CLUP.

Following is a link to Milton’s CLUP.

Milton Comprehensive Land Use Plan