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Richmond Neighborhood Coordinating Council Rejects Proposed Design Review Changes

Click here to see the letter dated July 25, 2007, from the Richmond Neighborhood Coordinating Council to Mayor Gayle McLaughlin and the Richmond City Council strongly rejecting the Council’s previous action to disband the Design Review Board and fold its functions into the Planning Commission.

 

The letter followed a panel discussion on July 9 where Councilmember Maria Viramontes, Planning Commission Chair Virgina Finlay and I discussed the proposal. The letter included the following:

 

“Nothing that was said during the panel discussion persuaded anyone in the room that Council’s decision was in the best interest of Richmond’s residents. Instead, the decision means at least, 1) an increased workload for the Planning Commission, 2) a jury-rigged and much more limited design review, 3) geatly reduced opportunity for citizen input on projects both large and small, and 4) what appears to be license for developers to do what they please with projects and to do it quickly.”

 

Viramontes seems to have based her proposal, which also proved popular with the Council majority, on a single anecdotal incident she has repeated several times wherein a homeowner allegedly received approval of a bedroom addition from the Design Review Board with a certain type of window. When the homeoner had completed the project, just in time for winter, a building inspector siad the windows were the wrong type and ordered a change.

 

Viramontes has been unwilling or unable to provide the location of this incident so that the facts can be checked. Nevertheless, it appears to be the principal justification for a major reorganization of the City’s discretionary review procedure for development projects.

 

The Richmond Neighborhood Coordinationg Council (RNCC) represents Richmond’s 32 neighborhood councils.