Vote: students zoned out

    The battle to rezone Milledgeville’s Historic District and other parts of the city came to a shocking conclusion last Tuesday night as the Milledgeville City Council voted unanimously to approve the new zoning ordinance.
    “I’m not very happy with it, I feel as if there was 6,000 students, over one-third of the population, that was not considered at all. I believe there was a preconceived game plan before coming in here,” said Will Thompson, senior advisor of the Student Political Movement.
    Thompson not only disagrees with the city’s new plan, but he has a personal stake in the outcome. He lives in a house that will be affected by the ordinance.
    Thompson said that he was rather concerned about what students will think once they hear about the council’s decision.
    “I’m worried about the 6,000 students that realize that nobody listened to their opinion. I think that is going to be quite upsetting. I think it will be a loss for the community,” Thompson said.
    The council was confident in its decision and believes that the zoning change is a powerful step to a better Milledgeville.
    “I think that because everyone did their homework that everyone was confident in their vote for the ordinance,” said Denise Shinholster, member of the city council. “I think that it’s a step forward. I would never tell you that it was a solution, because there are always instances where you have to go back and redo and re-adjust.”
    The meeting ran smoother than many city officials thought it would, starting with a two-hour public hearing with concerned citizens arguing for or against the ordinance.
    Mayor Richard Bentley said he was proud of the way the community acted and that the city is working on a plan where students and private citizens can coexist. He also stressed the fact that the city is willing to continue working with those who oppose the change.
 “I would like to tell those people who had opposing views tonight that over the next couple of years we are going to work with them not against them,” Bentley said.         “We are still interested in what they have to say. [Students] need to know that this is not student driven and it’s not student specific. We want to make sure that they are welcome here, the only thing that we’re trying to do is to be fair, where everybody can live.”
    There is still one force working against the city council.
    And that force is Alan I. Begner, attorney at law.
    “I anticipate being retained to file a lawsuit and I’m going to start working on it right away,” Begner said after the meeting. “I am confident that this law is unconstitutional and that I’ll be able to convince a judge of that.”
    Begner is representing the Milledgeville Residential Investors and is prepared to take the case to the Georgia Supreme Court.
    Parents who have bought houses for their children to live in and many landlords made appearances at the meeting, asking the council to deny the ordinance.
    “I feel really sad. I think it’s a missed opportunity,” said Susan Arnold, a resident of Roswell who has children attending GCSU. “When you exclude a segment of society, like the students, from an area to try and promote exclusivity, how do you expect those students to learn and respect what they are being excluded from?”
    The new zoning ordinance will have two years to go into full effect. And no matter what city officials say, students feel like the city has turned its back on them.
    “I guess city council was doing their job and I can’t fault them for their decision,” said Janessa Hartman, president of the Student Government Association. “But I do wish that our representative would have been more on the student’s side than on the Historic District’s side.”

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Nov 17 2006. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry