The Civic Capacity Countdown - #7: Reforming the Planning Commission
The debacle around the IOOF/Old Miami Courthouse Building brings this issue into focus
In one short week, Civic Capacity turns one year old. This publication is looking back over some of the most popular and most consequential pieces of work that have been put forward over the past year and revisiting the issues and topics that have helped make Civic Capacity a thoughtful and reliable source of information for our community.
Today’s piece comes from March, but has been a topic that has been bantered about many times in this publication — reforming our own city planning commission. As our community looks back at the turmoil that surrounded the IOOF/Old Miami Courthouse Building, we would all be well served to think about what were the contributing factors that made the entire scenario fall off the rails.
Without a doubt, one of those factors was our city’s own planning commission. The planning commission, who was found by the courts to have not followed the city’s procedures, cast a deciding vote to allow the building to be demolished.
This publication went to great lengths to talk about the current makeup of our city’s planning commission - no doubt dominated by city hall insiders and articulated an argument that perhaps it was in the community’s best interest to take voting powers away from the Mayor and the City Service and Safety Director.
What do you think? Do these ideas hold merit? Are they worth pursuing? Share your ideas and insights in the comment thread.
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