Wildwood Mayor Vetoes City Council Vote

In an unusual occurrence at Wildwoood's city council meeting Monday, Mayor Tim Woerther vetoed the actions of council members who had voted 11-5 to approve a bill that updated the comprehensive zoning plan for the city's Town Center. This vote came after a year-long stalemate about approving plans for the Town Center that were adopted by Planning and Zoning Commissioners.

Wildwood's governance is established such that the Planning and Zoning Commission reviews and modifies, if necessary, the zoning plan, while city council members govern the city's charter. Ideally, both the zoning plan and charter's map of the city land usage should match in their details. Council members are set up to ratify decisions made by the Planning and Zoning Commission, but the two entities operate as independent governing bodies, per Missouri laws.

leaders and council members adopted the philosophy and approach of "new urbanism" in 1995. One of the reasons these land use plans are so important is that they dictate what type of commercial development, if any, is allowed and where it can be placed in Town Center or elsewhere in Wildwood.

Council members had been in a gridlock about approving the overall Town Center plan, primarily due to differing opinions about four treks of land contained within the center:  the Brown, Slavik Family Trust, Jones Family and Spanos properties.

The city's charter mandates that the Town Center plan be reviewed after it was adopted in 1998. It was this step in 2008 that prompted all the activity that's happened since.

At frequent times throughout the past year, owners and legal representatives of the properties have addressed council members at various meetings. Council members have attempted voting on different combinations of approaches to the situation, but never got to the majority vote needed—even though the situation spanned over changes in members on the council due to a new election cycle.

Many of the debates have been about proposed changes in land use categories of specific properties, involving future urban and commercial possibilities, and the overall intensity of their usage. Some Wildwood residents have asked for commercial development to not be allowed near their homes, citing that land use was approved for particular purposes when they purchased their homes.

One point of major disagreement among council members, including the mayor, was that the Planning and Zoning recommended plan embodied the work of an 18-member, citizen-led Town Center Advisory Panel (TCAP). The panel, consisting of volunteer members, spent approximately 17 months reviewing the Town Center situation and possibilities. Their activities included working with a nationally recognized expert in new urbanism, as well as a tour of New Town at St. Charles, MO. Some Town Center property owners then did not agree with the land use designations their land received; some city council members also have not agreed, pointing to it being akin to the city using imminent domain to take property owners' land.

Wildwood's Director of Planning and Parks Joe Vujnich maintains that the TCAP work created a simplified plan, particularly in terms of the designations of properties located within its boundary, set better standards and guidelines, and addressed the areas identified for improvement, which included the number of commercially-designated sites within the Town Center area, the creation of more residentially designated parcels of ground, and defined the Pond Historic District better from the standpoint of regulations and practices for its use.

TCAP members completed their work in October 2009. A public hearing regarding their recommendations was held Nov. 16, 2009.

Due to the number of comments from property owners at the hearing, Planning and Zoning Commission members further studied the parameters for three months, especially those properties located along or near Missouri Route 109 and Eatherton Road, and ultimately finalized a document by a 6-4 vote on March 1, 2010.

This has been a complex issue weaving in and around the city's development and history for the past several years. A second public hearing about the issue was held March 8, 2010, by council members. A third public hearing was conducted May 23, 2011.

On June 27, council members authorized the preparation of legislation to adopt the updated Town Center Plan’s Regulating Plan, excepting those four identified properties over which there had been so much debate, thereby amending the city's Comprehensive Zoning Plan set forth by the city’s Charter. That step would have made the regulating plan consistent with the Conceptual Land Use Categories Map of Wildwood's Master Plan.

Monday night's discussion, via a suggested amendment to the bill by council member Larry McGowen, Ward 1, even included sending the four properties in question back to an unrelated committee to date: the Planning/Economic Development/Parks Committee. That motion failed.

More recent council debates and votes have focused on the fact that they are in agreement about 95 percent of the plan. It's really the fate of the four major properties that is the hurdle.

Under Wildwood city charter guidelines, Woerther now must provide in writing his reasoning for vetoing the council's vote. The charter states that the mayor must provide a rationale for disapproving council's actions. The charter also states the situation will be readdressed at the next available city council meeting, which is in three weeks on Sept. 12, due to the Labor Day holiday.

Woerther stated on numerous occasions he believed council members should have honored the Town Center plans as set forth by the citizen-led panel. "The residents' actions were clear, you should follow that plan, and you are ridiculous in that way," he told council members Monday night.

With emotions heated and tempers flaring a bit, Woerther and council members exchanged comments about being "pathetic" and "disrespectful."

Woerther said he thought it was condescending to not listen to the residents' wishes and "unheard of."

At the September meeting, council members will address the matter again. To overturn the mayor's veto takes a 2/3 vote, or super majority, of council members. In the case of Wildwood, that translates into needing 11 of the 16 votes, said City Administrator Dan Dubruiel.