Like life doesn’t suck enough for these residents. The city has already declared the property theirs under eminent domain. Now, before agreements have been reached, the henchmen are demanding the conditional use rezoning necessary to build the station.
The Plan Commission agenda for next Monday has this item:
3. City of Brookfield Fire Station No. 3 – Conditional Use Public Hearing Request
Read the staff report and recommendation for the entire meeting.
I don’t understand why the neighborhood isn’t fighting back. I wouldn’t want my property devalued by a fire station as a neighbor.
2 responses so far ↓
1 Jeff // Jun 19, 2008 at 6:05 pm
I’m sure many neighbors would love to resist the new location for Fire Station #3, but ultimately the law doesn’t appear to provide any vehicle to do so once the common council has made the decision.
The Supreme Court of the United States has recently made it abundantly clear that they prefer urban renewal and city plans to the rights of an individual property owner to retain their chunk of terra ferma. Which means legal wrangling about the eminent domain issue is taking on a very serious up hill battle, and almost certainly futile.
For zoning changes there is a formal system of objection available for adjacent property owners called a protest petition. This would at least force a 75% majority vote from our elected officials. Unfortunately, Fire stations fall under the broad blanket of conditional use; 17.108.050 of the City of Brookfield municipal code. Since the zoning doesn’t need to actually change, every reference I have found to date seems to clearly state that protest petitions cannot be filed to any effect. They are simply not valid under these circumstances.
The governmental theory behind all of this is that “We The People…” should have made good decisions with our votes in the ballot box to prevent this kind of heavy handed move. Sadly the hurt to dozens of residential homes within the larger city of Brookfield is seen as acceptable collateral damage and simply is too small and isolated to cause any voter retaliation.
Which leaves the affected residents with few options beyond the melodramatic step of chaining oneself to a tree on the building site or fantasizing about grounds for litigation buried somewhere in the fine print of case law. Neither is likely to prove a practical recourse.
-Jeff
2 Stimpy // Jun 19, 2008 at 8:50 pm
Jeff, Thank you for saying this. I had just typed a long response stating my feelings about this matter, but it was dumped before it posted.
The response that Cindy gave about giving up on the south side works for me. Because, I have given up on Brookfield. I have never met or socialized with a group, like some of the people that I know while living here. There is not to much to feel elitist about our community, it has been run into the ground. People roll their eyes if I say where I live, the follow up is usually on the lines of get over yourselves.
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