What You Can Do

===Do you think it was approprate for them to be less than forthcoming (perhaps the nicest way of putting it) during the permitting process?

They said they were putting in a medical clinic and they are putting in a medical clinic. Why would the type of medical clinic matter? I’m far more disturbed by the notion that health care clinics might be differentiated upon by who the tenant is, barring a bad neighbor type of situation. It opens the doors to all sorts of regulation of the type of practice from whether it treats low income individuals to particular types of practices. A medical clinic is a medical clinic.

===If so should we let other developers get away with the same if they are ‘less that forthcoming’ in the future?

What does that mean? The only cases I can imagine this being a big problem is if it requires a liquor license and you have a bad actor. In that case, the liquor license review stops the problem. If the business fits the permitted use, than why does the occupant matter?

This isn’t a minor issue. Do you have zoning laws to create order in the community–a good thing–or do you use it to stop legal uses by particular people–something I don’t like at least.

===Finally, if it was an testing lab and it was PETA outside the front doors would you feel the same way?

Dude, I hate PETA. Bad example. But more seriously, testing labs have all sorts of zoning problems and generally need zoning variances and so they fit in an entirely different category where review is based on a request for completely abnormal use–something few codes account for, if any.

On the other hand, let’s take the example as you meant it. I would feel the same way as long as the zoning was appropriate and it was a legal usage. If I felt the activities should be illegal, I would work to make it illegal, but accept it as it stands now. And usually testing facilities are industrial, but still require zoning variances (I know some folks who actually have spouses who do testing on primates). I’m also the guy who thought the horse slaughter ban was really stupid.

The far more similar example is adult businesses. I’m strongly for zoning to put adult businesses in industrial zoned areas to keep them away from schools and neighborhoods. That said, would I stop them from existing in those areas where they are zoned? No. They are generally selling legal products that I may/may not approve of, but other than ensuring it happens in a location that the space is zoned for, why should I pick and choose who gets to operate?

===Sorry on some levels that is what bothers me, the fact that the development process in this town is going to have to become an like a courtroom drama. Because justing giving ‘enough’ information is going to be enough.

But this is the thing–if the property is zoned for medical use, how do you discriminate against certain legal medical uses? It’s a problem to think of zoning as something that let’s you pick particular occupants. It’s what gets a town or city sued. In some cases you can make everything require a waiver, but that leads to more cronyism than anything.

===We already let developers get away with all sorts of stuff and this is another example. Do I wish the City had developed a spine on such issues sooner, yeah. Am I glad they seem to be doing it a bit now, yeah.

Here’s the problem again. The use is generic. So if you meet the zoning for a property and you don’t build something structurally incompatible with the zoning rules, why does the city get to decide who the occupant is? The city has set the rules by passing a zoning law–why would a deviation make sense?

We do treat selling of liquor different and require a separate license and that’s certainly reasonable, but that is because of nuisance. In the case of medical uses, the only possible nuisance is waste disposal which is regulated and in this case protestors. We don’t stop people from buying houses because they might be protested in their home.

Other than eliminating medical zoning in the City of Aurora, how would you eliminate a Planned Parenthood facility?

In the other cases, I’m betting the situation is that they are granting waivers. That’s a far different process and when there is often not enough oversight. Most mall management companies–for strip or indoor malls, would give the same answer that Gemini did and yet have the tenants already lined up. It’s not unusual at all and I tend to think that is the way it should be. The use should be identified and design specs, but not the tenants.