Naked City

Sherlock Holmes would be hard-pressed to follow the point and counterpoint of zoning and neighborhood battles at City Council, where business-as-usual dictates that whatever else is happening -- including such periodic nuisances as elections -- developers and their lobbyists never get tired, never run out of money, and never say die. The Hyde Park neighborhood, locked in a decades-long cage match with the Hyde Park Baptist Church, knows these rhythms well, and spent the last week trying to fend off various end-runs by the church, and apparent city staff attempts to facilitate those moves, as the closing bell neared on the Known Watson Era to be followed closely by the Unknown Garcia Era.

As reported frequently in Naked City, HPBC officials led by attorney/lobbyist and Watson confidant Richard Suttle had hoped to win expansion-friendly changes in the city's Hyde Park neighborhood plan before Watson (and his council vote) left office. That now appears to be impossible, as the draft ordinance was not even available at press time (24 hours before council was set to adopt it on third reading) and Monday the Hyde Park Neighborhood Association -- nonplussed at city staff's reassurances of progress yet inability to deliver the draft -- voted to request a postponement from the council. They were joined by the planning staff on Wednesday, when no draft ordinance was forthcoming. Granting the postponement on HPNA's first request for such is normally pro forma -- but at press time, rumors flew that even City Manager Jesus Garza had taken a direct hand in trying to broker a deal on the church's proposals to exempt itself from major aspects of the plan. Council member Jackie Goodman -- a neighborhood stalwart exhausted by the endless delay -- was said to be wavering on the postponement.

If the church somehow wires an 11th-hour deal to deny the neighborhood a postponement and serious consideration of the (thus far invisible) ordinance, it would be a major upset -- although not an unprecedented one. Said one Hyde Park resident: "This is exactly how HPNA got screwed in 1990 -- with a rushed process under pressure from the church, no final draft, and a 'Trust us, we'll write it' from city legal. We're not anxious to make the same mistake twice."