Assisted-Living Project Planned

At last Monday's Historic Preservation Commission (HPC) meeting a developer presented a request for demolition of three structures on the southwest corner of Calhoun and Tryon Streets. The address for the properties is 200-212 South Tryon Street.

There are two multi-unit buildings there and a garage, and the underlying plan is for an assisting-living development for up to 56 living units. Tenants would likely be in the upper 70s and 80s and folks who do not drive their own cars; thus, only limited parking would be needed and probably less than the normal one-half space per living unit that required by the City's zoning ordinances.

The request was for a Certificate of Appropriateness (COA) to demolish the buildings. The HPC questioned the timing of this request, since the project has not yet been approved by the Plan Commission. The owner/developer explained that he had appeared before the Plan Commission and understood that his next step was to request a COA for demolition. The Certificate would be conditioned upon the approval of his plan by the Plan Commission, and no demolition would occur unless the plan is approved.

I telephoned Community Development this afternoon to ask when the Public Hearing would be, and I was told that nothing was scheduled and that the next meeting of the Plan Commission would be on the first Monday of February, and the Agenda for that meeting had not been prepared yet.

However, when I was in the neighborhood and drove by the property early this evening, I spotted the familiar Public Hearing sign in the front yard of the building at 220-212 South Tryon Street. The Public Hearing is scheduled for Thursday, January 22, 2009, at 7:00PM at City Hall.

If you would like to know more about this project, mark your calendars now and plan to attend.

This will be a Public Hearing, not a public meeting; note the use of capital letters in Public Hearing. The first visible step in the formalities is posting of the proper Notice on the property. This alerts neighbors and passersby to a proposed change in their neighborhood.

The next step will be a Public Hearing. Won't it be interesting to learn which attorney from the City Attorney's office shows up to advise the Plan Commission? Will there be sworn testimony? Will the proceedings be recorded aurally? Will there be a court reporter there to create a verbatim record? Will there be cross-examination?

On the other hand, the Plan Commission could save some money and follow the procedure recently used by the Historic Preservation Commission. Just announce that all testimony will be sworn testimony, but skip the swearing-in part. Unfortunately, it's not that easy. Saying that what will be said will be true doesn't necessarily make it so. There is a reason that an attorney swears in each person before he speaks.

If I raise my hand and swear to tell the truth and then don't, it's called perjury. If you're not going to tell the truth, then you'd better keep quiet.

In fact, just skip having an attorney there from the City Attorney's office; that'll save the City some money.

And the skip the audio recording and the expensive court reporter, with the subsequent transcription of every word spoken. Now that'll save a bunch of money.

Of course, then there won't be any record of what happened, but it must not be all that important, because none of that happened when the Historic Preservation Commission met to consider the fate of Grace Hall. What the HPC had was a very nice public meeting. What it should have had was a Public Hearing.

I think we can pretty well count on the Plan Commission's conducting a Public Hearing, but we'll find out on January 22.