RENDRAG PROJECT AGAIN REJECTED BY PLANNING AND ZONING

They arrived at city hall with pictures, more signatures, emotional speeches and the 1987 Cape Girardeau Comprehensive Plan, ammunition designed to shoot down a project that would change the neighborhood from a single-family residential district to multiple-family zoning.

They left the Cape Girardeau Planning and Zoning Commission meeting happy the 33-acre tract of land west of Perryville Road and south of Lexington Avenue would remain zoned single-family.

After hearing the second round of impassioned testimony against a rezoning request by Rendrag Corp., the Planning and Zoning Commission voted unanimously once again to recommend that the city council reject Rendrag Corp's plan for two-family and multiple family housing.

Rendrag Corp. pulled the plug on its initial project in lieu of an alternate plan. But several commissioners said they couldn't make a decision without the opportunity to see a preliminary plat on the alternate project, which Dr. Robert Gardner, president of Rendrag, didn't provide at Wednesday's meeting.

The commission considered tabling the matter to give Gardner 30 days to draft an alternate preliminary plat. But Commissioner Harry Rediger said that tactic wouldn't benefit either side of the debate.

"We voted it down the first time, and after listening to these people speaking overwhelmingly against it, I see no reason for us to table this," said Rediger. "I think we should vote on it tonight. It was an ill-willed project from the start and it remains so. For that reason I will vote no."

The remaining four members of the P&Z Commission in attendance followed suit.

Gardner can appeal the recommendation, taking his proposal directly to the Cape City Council. But on Wednesday, Gardner said he wouldn't make another attempt to revive his project.

The Scott City resident still plans to develop the land. "I can make more money with single housing than I could with the original or even the alternate plan," said Gardner. "If that's what the people in this neighborhood want, they will have it."

"I've already been approached by someone in Jackson who seems interested in the original plan," he added. "Some people are interested in the mundane and others are interested in something a little different."

Don Hopper, who brought a copy of the Cape Girardeau Comprehensive Plan for 1987 and 366 signatures to the meeting, cited the city's intentions of keeping the neighborhood R-1, or single-family residential.

Several neighbors spoke against bringing in additional apartment dwellings into an area that already has apartments. A woman provided pictures for the commission of what the neighborhood on Delwin street looks like "on a good day."

The same woman argued that the kind of apartments Rendrag proposed building were expensive enough, $500 to $1,500 a month, to make buying or renting a home seem like a better option.

Said Barbara Glass, a spokeswoman for those who signed the petition, "I understand that Dr. Gardner has made a substantial investment in the property he has purchased. But we have made a substantial investment of our own, and we deserve the right to protect that investment. We don't want the value of our property to go down."