| The Central Issue in This Election:
Uncontrolled Growth |
We have a pro-growth City Council that is not in favor of any limit on population. On July 5, when the election was a season away, five of the Council members—including the only one running for re-election, Michele Van Pelt (Ward 2)—said they envisioned that Louisville would grow by up to 6,000 additional residents, and that our population, currently 19,000, would grow by up to 25,000, a 32% increase. Worse, they made it clear they would never agree to any kind of limit on housing or population. On August 16, these pro-growth Council members led the way to approving a Comp Plan that (a) already exceeded their stated "intent" that Louisville would be a city of no more than 23,000, and (b) ensured that developers would have virtually unlimited "flexibility" in the development of vacant land, including the "flexibility" to add even more housing than what the Plan allows. The Plan has been approved. Developers can now use the pro-growth Plan to propose massive housing projects. The only thing standing between those massive housing projects and our small-town character is...our pro-growth Council. Uncontrolled growth would infect and permeate every part of life in Louisville: it damages the city's fiscal health; it displaces regional retail and the revenue it generates; it adds to traffic congestion and pollution; it crowds our schools, parks and open space; it makes our new, as-yet unfinished library overcrowded before the first book is checked out; it jeopardizes our small-town character and quality of life. Those who think there is some other issue in this election—say, attracting more regional retail stores to increase our sales-tax revenue—see a tree, but not a forest. If you accept, as Mayor Sisk suggested at the July 5 Council meeting, that housing costs the city money and massive housing costs the city massive money, then you recognize the problem: adding more retail while adding unlimited housing puts us on a fiscal treadmill on which we are steadily losing ground. The housing will take us down the path of most cities who have grown too big: no "small town" character and diminished quality of life. There's only one issue: uncontrolled housing growth. |
| | Home | |