COUNCIL DENIES ACCESS; DRIVEWAY WOULD VIOLATE CITY SUBDIVISION CODE

Paul and Patricia Brown have a problem. They are the new owners of a lot in the north end of Cape Girardeau in an undeveloped portion of the Belleridge Subdivision.

Paul Brown describes the wooded lot as attractive, but he now has no access to the property where he hopes to build a home.

At Monday's Cape Girardeau City Council meeting, the Browns asked the city to solve their problem and allow them to build a driveway on city right of way for an undeveloped street.

The planned street, Jasmine, is designed to connect Flad to Dixie, but has never been built. A small section of the route serves as a gravel driveway that's maintained by property owners abutting the Browns' lot.

That driveway was permitted through a maintenance contract between the property owners and the city. The Browns requested a similar contract for their property.

But city staff and council members said the previous agreement was a "bad precedent" they didn't want to perpetuate. City Manager J. Ronald Fischer said the driveway arrangement would violate the city's subdivision regulations adopted in 1976.

He said that allowing construction of private driveways on city rights of way goes against city requirements that call for orderly subdivision development.

"If we recommend this, we would have these types of situations develop all over," Fischer told the Browns. "I can understand what you want, but it's just not the way to develop in an orderly manner."

Councilman David Limbaugh and Mayor Gene Rhodes were the only council members to vote in favor of the Browns' request.

Limbaugh said he favored making an exception in a case such as the Browns, who purchased the property "innocently" with the assumption that the city would allow the driveway access.

But council member Mary Wulfers said she thought the exception would only continue a bad policy set by a former council.

"A bad precedent has been set by the council in the past to allow development in areas where there hasn't been proper development, and I think it has to stop," Wulfers said.

Brown told the council that he assumed the request would be approved. He said his attorney assured him he would be able to build the home on the lot.

With the council's denial of his request, Brown said he was at a loss for options.

Assistant City Manager Al Stoverink said that when the Lexington arterial project is completed, the area just north of Jasmine likely will develop. He said property owners in the area might petition the city for street and sewer improvements, at which time Jasmine might also be built.

Stoverink said the only way the city could build the street is with the financial participation of all the abutting property owners.

In other business at Monday's meeting, students from a Southeast Missouri State University communications class requested that the council adopt an ordinance to ban smoking in grocery stores.

Also, Rhodes reported that the city might be able to qualify for 40 to 60 federal Housing and Urban Development homes for low-income residents.

The university students were members of Michael Hogan's Practical and Professional Written Communication class. They proposed the smoking ban ordinance as part of a class project. The council took no action on the proposal.

Heather Finkelston, one of the students, told the council that the class considered different ways to restrict public smoking, but thought a ban in grocery stores would be the most practical suggestion.

Finkelston and Frank Schaffer, also a student in the class, presented to the council a report that explained why the class thought smoking in grocery stores should be prohibited. The report included a survey of 253 people in Cape Girardeau, of whom 82 percent said they supported the proposal.

Fifty-eight percent of those surveyed said they were bothered by smoke in grocery stores, Finkelston added.

In regard to the public housing issue, Rhodes said he recently discussed with a HUD official the possibility of the city qualifying for a program in which the federal agency would fund construction of up to 60 low-income housing units valued at $60,000 to $80,000 each.

Rhodes said that in order to qualify, the council must pass a resolution by May 26 declaring its intentions to appoint a public housing authority and apply for the HUD program. The council agreed to place the item on the agenda for its May 20 meeting.

The city late last year considered the issue of how to address low-income housing needs in Cape Girardeau. The city staff proposed a three-phased approach as the most effective way to provide low-cost housing.

The staff plan included: adoption of a minimum property maintenance code; application to the Missouri Community Block Grant Development program; and efforts to secure local funds for housing assistance.

City officials said at the time that the three-phase approach would be more effective than applying for federal public housing. More than 200 houses already are in housing assistance programs in Cape Girardeau, none of them federally subsidized.

The state's block grant program provides money for housing renovations in low-income areas.

During the 1980s, the city received four community block grants worth $1.8 million. The money was used to rehabilitate more than 100 houses and pave 17 streets in the south part of the city and in the Red Star neighborhood in the northeastern part of the community.

City officials have said that about 25 houses would be rehabilitated annually through the block grant program, compared to only 18 to 20 units if federal funding was used.