Editorial 2.3, by Deirdre Helfferich The Greasy Zoning that Makes Hamburger of Us All Every time I pass the McDonald’s Restaurant on Geist Road, I check out the latest addition to the neighbors’ clown corpse collection. Seems McDonald’s neighbors aren’t too pleased with Ronald. They’ve got that symbol of the world’s most successful hamburger purveyor hanging in effigy not once but three times, on their rooftops and above their garden fence. The fence seems to be composed primarily of signs protesting “McTrash, McNoise, McLight, McStench,” and it entreats the local franchise’s customers to think about their contribution to the McMess. I can see their point. I sure wouldn’t want that godawful yellow M looming over my property; nor could I stay even halfway friendly toward a business that operated, with very bright lights, eighteen hours a day and installed a squawk box for the convenience of their sonic-boom-as-music-loving customers. Nosirree, I wouldn’t be too happy at all. But then, I don’t live in a business district, either. Funny thing, though: neither do McDonald’s neighbors. The restaurant is in a Business One zoning district, a little strip that runs along Geist Road. Smack dab behind that is a residential zone, which was there first. But there is no buffer between the two: a classic example of really stupid zoning. It’s this kind of non-planning that creates simmering conflicts which finally erupt years later. So why was this awkward situation allowed in the first place? Across the street is West Valley High School and the Hutchison Career Center, so the hamburger joint, like the pizza place down the road, is in a great spot for its clientele. For a fast food eatery, location is crucial. The assembly’s concern back when the issue came up in the late ’80s was with economic development and encouragement of business (this was toward the end of the pipeline boom), a perfectly reasonable and laudatory aim. McDonald’s local franchise owner was offering, essentially, to encourage the local economy by placing a new restaurant in that corner of town. So far, so good. The odd thing is that somehow this seemed to mean, judging by the actions of the zoning-powers-that-were, economic development at the expense of considerate and considered planning, a curiously black-and-white, simplistic way of thinking about the future. Apparently no public hearings were held on the subject and no public comment invited, but it’s hard to tell, because the minutes for the two borough assembly meetings where this particular issue was discussed have been misplaced somewhere in the borough files, according to Bruce Phillips, who is one of the property owners behind McDonald’s. But he was able to find out some things. Guess who was instrumental in coming up with the zoning plan? None other than Joe “People’s Republic” Ryan! When the local rentors found out that a spanking new McDonald’s Restaurant was going up next door, Ronald McDonald got burned in effigy on a weekly basis for a while. The fuss made the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner’s headlines and I recall a nice color photo of Ronald being put to the torch. But the protests availed little, and today, the owner of the restaurant has to look at the evidence of disgruntled neighbors once again. Ten years’ worth of occupa-tion means that the restaurant is not going to go away, but the neighbors are asking for a sound barrier and a shorter M—not unreasonable requests, in my view. The residents were there first, after all. Planning seems almost to be anathema to the public mind—after all, we live in the Great Frozen North, the Last Frontier, the Home of the Really Free (unlike those poor slobs Outside who have to deal with the Bureaucracy). Up here, the attitude seems to say, we don’t tell people what they can and cannot do. But planning is necessary, especially in an urban environment, just so that restaurants can avoid the kind of situation that McDonald’s finds itself in, and that residents can avoid the kind of situation Bruce and his neighbors find themselves in. Like it or not, people are here in sufficient density that some kind of city planning is needed. But to be useful—rather than annoying or downright idiotic—planning must involve looking ahead, over time, at the interests and needs of all parties involved. Economic development at the cost of the reasons we live here is counterproductive and silly. We can and should choose development that makes the borough a better place to live. Zoning and grandfather rights are there for good reason, but when zoning is done thoughtlessly and without proper input from the people who will be affected by it, everybody suffers, and for a good long time. | ||
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