I’m no legal expert by any stretch of the imagination, but in my untrained opinion, things did not seem to go well for Responsible Growth for Northcross in court today. Now, maybe I’m wrong. As a resident of the one of the neighborhoods that abuts the former Northcross Mall property, I hope I’m wrong. I’m sure tomorrow morning I’ll get an earful from RG4N’s lawyers and/or spokesperson Jason Meeker telling me exactly why I’m wrong. And ultimately, Judge Orlinda Naranjo will tell me whether I’m wrong. But here’s the way things looked to me on Wednesday.
RG4N’s lawyers Brad Rockwell and Doug Young’s arguments Wednesday centered on whether Lincoln Property – the developer seeking to build a Wal-Mart at Northcross – has met its legal requirements for flood control, and whether they city has adequately addressed traffic concerns. Rockwell and Young say they haven’t – problem is, the very witnesses they keep calling to the stand say they have, and I haven’t yet heard Rockwell and Young trap them into saying otherwise. That leaves Naranjo to decide who knows more about the intricacies of the city’s site review laws – RG4N or the city’s professionals. I think I know how that’s gonna go.
Examples:
• When Young asked about a city code that forbids flood runoff that will result in water piling up more than half a foot above the crown of a roadway – as it probably would in a 100-year flood event on Northcross Drive, which wraps around the western and southern sides of the Northcross block – city engineer Benny Ho said, “That’s for new construction of culverts. … The Texas Water Codes specifically state that if there is existing inundation, that the proposed development cannot produce additional adverse impact downstream.” And, “city codes specifically call for no increased inundation in the event that we approve a site plan.” (Italics mine; translation: Northcross’ flooding problems existed before Lincoln ever bought the property, and while their site plan may not make any provisions to correct those problems, it won’t make it any worse, either.)
• The traffic impact analysis commissioned by Lincoln shows that the redevelopment will produce an 7,572 extra car trips per day (per car, that’s a trip in and a trip out, or 3,786 cars total). That’s on top of the 6,280 per day now. When George Zapalac, the development services manager at the city’s Watershed Protection and Development Review department, said this would not endanger public safety, Rockwell asked whether Zapalac had considered the effect those extra cars would have when combined with those floodwaters, or if he considered the health or climate change effects of all that extra pollution. No, Zapalac replied – because those types of considerations are not part of a traffic impact analysis. While there may be other city staff that work on those problems, it was not within the scope of his job or the scope of a TIA.
• Questions from the judge herself didn’t seem to bode well, either. A plat note on the property – that RG4N alleges the city had failed to enforce – says that, “Rainwater runoff shall be held to the amount existing at undeveloped status by use of ponding or other approved methods.” “It’s my understanding that ‘undeveloped status’ in that language does not mean ‘no development,’ and that’s how the city has never interpreted that, to mean ‘no development’?” “If there’s already development on the site,” said city engineer Jose Guerrero, “and they’re adding more … ‘undeveloped status’ is the existing level of development there.”
Now, what may prove me wrong: In addition to the testimony, Naranjo presumably will also look at other types of evidence in her chambers, and give a thorough reading to the relevant city codes, and perhaps see something that isn’t obvious to us observers sitting in the gallery. I’d certainly like to think I’ve missed something in there.
P.S. I’ll take a moment here to plug one the services we offer at the Chronicle. The moment I get word of Naranjo’s decision, I’ll send out a Breaking News Alert over e-mail. To subscribe to our Breaking News Alert service, sign up here.
This article appears in November 9 • 2007.