Planning Commission Poised to Make Fateful Bells Bend Decision Today with No Neutral Impact Study

One of the few voices of sanity on the May Town Center development is long-time Scene fixture Christine Kreyling, who points to the alarming ignorance with which the Planning Commissioners are set to decide the fate of Bells Bend this afternoon:

Unfortunately, the commissioners are scheduled to make one of the most important decision of their careers without the necessary facts. The whole premise for the land use change is economic impact. But to determine the degree to which the proposed project will boost the tax rolls, the commissioners must rely on statistics produced by the developers who want to build that shadow downtown.

"We don't have the resources to do our own economic study," explains the Metro Planning Department's Jennifer Carlat.

Holy rush-to-judgment, Batman! It really is the developers in charge of the hen house if the government officials whom we expect to be neutral fail to commission their own independent impact study in the name of defending the public interest. It's further evidence that the system is stacked against those of us who are not developers uploading slickly-produced digital presentations. How bought with developer money will the Planning Commission look if they pass this today?