Tampa City Council ended up not approving the Village rezoning by a three to two vote. Tom Scott, Joseph Caetano and Gwen Miller voted for the approval, while Mary Mulhern and Linda Saul-Sena voted against it. John Dingfelder recused himself because he has an office in Hyde Park Village and Charlie Miranda was not present. The Council will have to vote again on December 20, but this time without the public forum.

I was at the meeting for a couple hours and what struck me about it was the constant snickering in the audience whenever a differing opinion was expressed at the podium. There were obviously a lot of people there with their minds already set. It was a polarized crowd - standing room only - with those for the plan on on side waiting to speak, and those opposed on the other in line for their turn.

I was disappointed at the almost complete lack of a willingness to compromise.  This quote by David Wasserman (on TBO) is indicative of the sentiment:

“It is amazing that a project like this would not be universally embraced,” he said after the hearing. “It is interesting to me that something like this is so contentious.”

I think that the basic idea behind the plan is good. Hyde Park Village needs help and I don’t think that increased density is necessarily bad, but I think that in this case the scale is wrong. I mentioned the fuzzy renderings in a previous post about the Hyde Park Village project. Well, it wasn’t just because the drawings were reduced - they really are hard to make out. They are quite sketchy and don’t do a good job at showing what this development would look like. A woman at the meeting brought a different rendering done without the frills and it showed the massing of what is proposed along with some existing structures. The change in scale was abrupt and much more noticeable than in the Wasserman drawings. I have to think that the sketchy drawings are intentional.

I think that there are good arguments on both sides but I heard some really ridiculous statements and here are a few.

Without this plan Hyde Park will cease to exist. It’s dying and needs revitalized.

Actually Hyde park is doing fine. If the Village disappeared tomorrow, Hyde Park would still be a great, thriving community. The Village needs Hyde Park more than Hyde Park needs the Village.
Without this project the “creative class” will leave in a mass exodus.

This came up a couple of times last night by self-proclaimed members of this new “class”. How arrogant is it to put yourself in a whole separate class of people? One speaker complained that all her friends have left for cooler cities and if this is not approved, she will lose all hope in Tampa. Hyde Park is actually attracting many young professionals. This biggest limiting factor is home prices, and this is because people actually want to live here, not because people are leaving in droves.

We need a high density project like this to be able to support mass transit/light rail.

If it was as simple as this, why did light rail exist with the same density in the past. Surely cars have something to do with it. Also, I love light rail and I would like to be able to get around without my car, but no one can realistically think that adding 160 condos to a project will suddenly make this happen.

Thank God for David Wasserman.

I’m not kidding. This was actually said a few times. David Wasserman is in it to make as much money as possible and I don’t fault him for that. But the City Council is there to balance the equation for the people. Their job is to make sure the project is right for the city. Not just Wasserman or the store owners. I can understand that the store owners are frustrated and they see this as their final chance, but I think the problem is more complex and can not be solved by someone coming in and maximizing the return on the property. Again, I think there should be some compromise, but is David Wasserman a saviour? No, he’s a developer who will be gone after his job is done

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