You may be here as a result of a recent post card mailing discussing the very real possibility of the development of an apartment complex in Westwood financed through HUD.� Yes, it is true.
As farfetched as it may seem, all of the facts presented in the post card are true and accurate. Supporting details can be found in the following two documents:
The June 4 2010 Project Proposal
The July 14 2010 Planning Study.
Please note that these documents were not created by the city both are a product of the developer. To date, the city has issued no study or evaluation, has not analyzed its Comprehensive Plan as it relates to this proposal, or asked the Planning Commission to consider or take action on the proposal or to review whether the City's Comprehensive Plan would even allow such a development. In fact, the only time this appeared at the Planning Commission as part of a published agenda was when they were asked to endorse the selection of a development consultant to assist the City in the development of the property. In that case it failed to gain a motion to approve. (As a point of further fact, the Planning Commission cancelled its scheduled August meeting due to nothing being on its agenda.)
Also note that for decades the city's comprehensive plan has not allowed for apartments by design. The city leaders and the city as a whole has determined that this is not the type of housing stock they envision for the long-term good of our community.
The post card you received includes a number of statements of facts, all of which can be verified in one or both of these two documents. We encourage you to review the documents and draw your own conclusions.
The post card also exposes our elected officials involvement in the creation of this development proposal dating back as early as 2009. What is not included in the post card is the active role the Chairman of the Planning Commission played in this development at that time. You can review Council Member John Ye's and Paul Day's and Planning Commission Chair Chris Ross' role in the development of this proposal in any of a number of documents, the best one being a July 2, 2010 document (SEE LINK Brettell Response to Follow-up Questions) providing answers to a series of follow-up questions requested by a special task force charged by the Mayor with responsibility for selecting a consultant from a group of three. One had been talking to city leaders for some time, the others had not.
(For the sake of keeping our discussions to the facts of this development and not the choice of consultants, we will not go into the details of the city choosing a consultant to work with the city on this development except to say that any statement related to the city hiring a consultant in 2003 is not supported in any way, shape or form by facts. A review of the facts indicates that the city has never hired a consultant for any Woodside proposal. Any statement to the contrary is, at best, a stretch of the truth. For further information on this, please consult with your local elected official or contact me via the web.)
Lastly, we want to offer an apology. We are not apologetic for sending the post card or for making this public information available to the public (this is something that the city should be doing at their expense, not ours), but rather for not sending the post card to all households. For the record, the mailing was limited to just over 300 households. We are truly sorry if your house was not included on this list. We would encourage you to talk to your neighbors, to share conversations, and to let your elected officials know how you and your neighbors feel about this development proposal.
We don't know how much of an impact making this information available to our residents will have (we have grave reservations about allowing 280+ apartments in our community). All that we can do (and what the city should be doing) is to make the information available to all residents and to encourage them to contact their elected officials.
According to Westwood's web page, you can contact your elected official at:
Paul Day pday@lathropgage.com Cellphone: 913/579-6419
John Ye - ccfsi2001@yahoo.com Cellphone: 913/220-6669
Katy Weber - katycweber@yahoo.com Phone: 913/236-0445
Joe Kordalski - joekordalski@yahoo.com Phone: 913/789-7061 (H) or 913/687-4333 (W)
Jace McClasky - jcmcclasky@yahoo.com Phone: 913/491-4400 (W) 785-766-5290 (cel)
Steve Stubbers westwoodmayor@sbcglobal.net 913/362-1550
We look forward to seeing you at the August 12 council meeting.
We can be contacted at webmaster@atruthfulwestwood.org