The Growth Management Study (GMS) was finally completed and delivered to the City last fall by the consultants over 2.5 years after initially being requested. Much of the information is now over 3 years old but we have still not heard about a comprehensive review from the City. We were informed in December of last year that a review would take about six months. It seems as if publicly it has not been mentioned since. This is a $500,000 or $1000 a page study. It contains valuable material, ramifications of which will have an effect on residents. We wonder what is the city's perspective on this information?
We will continue to post excerpts from this study on the right hand side of this blog and we remind our readers that the full document is available on the city's website.
Did you know for example that "the current City boundary has the capacity to house a population of approximately 36,000 or approximately double the current population? At an average annual growth rate of 1.2%, it would take 57 years for the City to reach a population of 36,000." GMS Section 1, Page 22.
If what you are saying is true, it would appear that the City knew this information about our capacity to accommodate twice our population before they proposed the East Hill city boundary expansion. How much money did we spend on hooking up Shadow Mountain (another boundary expansion) to city services? How long will it take for the build out of Shadow Mountain to pay for this? I believe there was a letter in the Townsman a while back that mentioned our taxes are going up 8% next year. That's absurd!
ReplyDeleteThe study is incomplete and needs some updating and input. The transportation part of the study does not differentiate between truck (semis) and other vehicles. Trucks take up the space of 3 to 4 cars so the model calibration is suspect.
ReplyDeleteAlso the consultants did not extend the precipitation data by comparison to nearby long term station. Plus the storms of July 2010 may change the assumptions for water supply, sewage, irrigation and drainage.
An usual error is also included. Giardia and Chrypto can be controlled with chlorine with low turbidity but O3 is the most effective oxidant.
The growth management study does not include infilling of total city land to improve a number of areas, like including the Hospital Creek area within the city boundaries to allow recreation and road access.
I have not gone through the study in detail, but improvements seem to be needed.