|
March 17, 2000/10 Adar II, Vol. 52, No.28
Scottsdale panel OKs community campus site
CHRIS GARIFO
|
 An overflow crowd of approximately 300 people, most there to support the Jewish Community Campus project, crammed into Scottsdale City Hall for the Planning Commission meeting Wednesday evening, March 15. Photo by Chris Garifo |
The case now moves on to the City Council, which will have final say on the permits. The council is scheduled to hear the case during its April 4 meeting.
The campus will be the future home of a Jewish Community Center, the Jewish Federation of Greater Phoenix, the King David School, the Jewish Community High School and several other Jewish agencies. The use permits will allow the campus to be built on an $11.5 million, 30-acre empty lot donated by an anonymous benefactor.
Approximately 300 people crammed Scottsdale City Hall for the commission hearing, prompting staff to set up a television monitor outside the building.
"This is as many as I've seen (turn out for a commission meeting)," chairwoman Betty Drake said.
Of those who attended the meeting, 194 submitted cards in support of the campus and 34 against, Drake said. Forty-five people spoke in favor of the campus while 30 others spoke against it during the public comment portion of the hearing.
Phoenix attorney John Berry presented the case to the commission for the federation.
During the public commentary portion of the hearing, campus proponents pointed to the benefits that a JCC offers a neighborhood and a community.
Opponents, mostly neighbors in the Scottsdale-Sweetwater area, voiced their concerns, which mainly included traffic, lighting, incompatibility with the neighborhood's low density, the dust that construction of the facility would cause, and the risk of intermingling between the high-school students and pupils at the neighboring Sonoran Sky Elementary School.
Berry explained to the commissioners that they would be considering a use permit, not a rezoning case, and their discretion was limited because the lot's current zoning allows for a facility such as a community center, church or school.
Among those speaking out in favor of the campus were federation Assistant Executive Director Fred Zeidman, Friends of the Jewish Community Campus chairman Richard Dobrusin, campus task force zoning chairman Steve Hilton, and NBA Hall of Famer Bob Lanier, who has lived in Scottsdale for four years.
Among those speaking against the user permits were Rick and Cathie Guevara, Gary and Nancy Gillenwater, Anne Hodgkins and Christopher Schmaltz, an attorney representing Hodgkins and consulting with the neighborhood group opposed to the project.
Nancy Gillenwater, who has led the opposition, told the commission that she was concerned that the campus would make it no longer safe for her children to walk to Sonoran Sky. Gillenwater evoked a mixture of gasps and laughter when she suggested that students at the Jewish high school would expose Sonoran Sky pupils to "teen love and drugs and alcohol and fast cars."
After some four hours of public commentary, Drake and commissioners Margaret Dun and David Gulino posed several questions to Berry, mainly focusing on traffic and the availability of alternate forms of transportation.
After the vote, campus task force chairman Ron Bookbinder said the result "was fabulous."
"It was a good win," he said. "I think that the facts and figures held up as we thought they would; we were straightforward with the commission and with the neighborhood and I think that the neighborhood will come out."
Nancy Gillenwater declined comment after the vote.
Bookbinder and Dobrusin also were delighted by the turnout of supporters, most of whom wore "YES" stickers to the hearing.
"We need the same turnout on April 4 (at the City Council hearing)," Dobrusin said. "The only thing that can stop us is apathy."