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Hardship Questions
Joel Hochstein
to:
AmesCityCouncil
07/16/2018 07:46 PM
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From: "Joel Hochstein" <hochsteinjw@gmail.com>
To: AmesCityCouncil@city.ames.ia.us
All-
I was reading that council will be the decision maker on approving a property sale hardship after making a finding on two points.I'm curious to know what Council(as policy makers)defines as"advantages"
and"disadvantages"are to a neighborhood-how is this measured,what metrics are used to determine"advantage"vs"disadvantage",what data is gathered on either the"advantage"side or the"disadvantage"
side.
This statement seems rather vague and subjective to me and since there is not a more strict criteria,leads me to believe that the decisions by other councils could use different criteria to be making a decision or
determination or that the same council could use different criteria for different hardship cases.Not having solid criteria for this could open the door for unintended consequences in decision making(not that a
set of specific criteria couldn't do the same).
How do I as a property owner go about outlining the"advantages"in a clear way if I don't know what I should be trying to communicate for my application or review by Council?Are each of these hardship
sale decisions open for public discussion at meetings?Will neighborhood associations/neighbors have a say in the collection of"disadvantages"or"advantages"?If yes,does this have an opposite affect on the
creation of"one community"by potentially putting the sale of my private property up for public discussion?Does it inadvertently provide an opportunity to pit neighbor against neighbor?
All questions that were running through my head as I was reading through the latest draft of this ordinance.
-Joel Hochstein
1501 Illinois Ave
file:///C:/Users/diane.voss/AppData/Local/Temp/notesFFF692/—web9937.htm 7/17/2018