City planning, zoning suffered gross meltdown on Graham Dr.

To the Editor:

Several recent editorials and letters have weighed in on the Stimson Avenue BellaVino controversy, correctly pointing out the arbitrary, selective and inconsistent manipulation of the zoning code by city officials. It is unfortunate that to date the same standard of scrutiny has not been applied to the Graham Drive project. The strange interpretations of the code in the Stimson project are small potatoes compared to the flagrant code violations and abuses of power that have been committed in the Graham Drive project.

In all of the wrangling over the Stimson project, there seems to be only one point that has unanimous agreement among commission members, the law director, the developer and the project's opponents, and is clearly spelled out in the law (Athens City Code Sections 23.04.05-23.04.07) — ground floor residence is not permitted in a B-3 zone. Yet that is exactly what is being built at 10 Graham Drive.

In the recent Jan. 11 meeting of the Athens Planning Commission, commissioner chair Nicholas Bittner notes that the Graham developer obtained a variance from the Board of Zoning Appeals (BZA) for ground-floor occupancy, but that is demonstrably false. Despite Mr. Bittner's appalling lack of knowledge, the application for a ground-floor residential variance at 10 Graham Drive was denied by the BZA by a 4-1 vote in January 2011. In May of 2011, the developer returned to the BZA with an endorsement from the Planning Commission sponsored by the mayor and approved as to procedure by the law director, this time asking for a "substitution" rather than a variance, which was granted by 3-2 vote. The problem is that a "substitution" is clearly defined by Section 23.07.02 as a substitution of use in an existing structure with no structural modifications. Any reasonable person would conclude that this clearly does not apply to tearing down a single-family residence and constructing a four-unit apartment building in its place.

A timely appeal to this arbitrary decision was filed to Athens County Common Pleas Court, in accordance with Section 23.07.11. The appeal specifically identified this, as well as a number of other serious code violations, both interpretative and procedural. The city's response was to double down on their improper decision, issue an illegal building permit, and drag their feet in providing documents of discovery requested by the court. Such actions go well beyond misinterpretation of the code, and constitute a deliberate and illegal abuse of power.

The "substitution" scam, however, is merely the tip of the iceberg. Another serious violation is an illegal curb cut at 11 Graham, which was made without BZA or Planning Commission approval. This was an attempt to partially (not completely) alleviate their inadequate parking problem at both 11 Graham and 10 Graham. In response to our request for documents, an illegal permit (the same type of permit that has been withheld from Bobcat Lane) was signed after the fact by the city service-safety director on Sept. 2, months after the curb cut was completed, and still without the required Planning Commission approval. 

Our court filings, including two appeals and a taxpayer suit, identify dozens of code and procedural violations, including improper parking, inadequate setbacks, and excessive lot coverage, just to name a few. Space does not permit details here, but the court filings are all public documents.

These two cases — as well as others — demonstrate a clear pattern of arbitrary, selective and unequal enforcement of the code, based on nothing more than the personal and political agenda of city officials, and serve only to undermine the very purpose of the zoning code and the rule of law in general.

Jeff Dill
Graham Drive
Athens