The Link starting from scratch
City failed to legally advertise July public hearing
By Joe and Deb Fitzgerald
Harrisonburg’s Community Development Department did not place a legally required newspaper advertisement announcing the public hearing for The Link before the July 9 Planning Commission meeting. The error means The Link, a student housing project on the site now occupied by Lindsey Funeral Home, will have to start from scratch with new public hearings before both the Planning Commission and City Council.
The errors affect both The Link and a minor rezoning advertised at the same time. The other rezoning, a parking issue at a small office building at 320 South Main Street, will come before the Planning Commission on Oct. 8.
Community Development Director Adam Fletcher was at Tuesday’s City Council meeting, but did not speak about the error, instead allowing his deputy, Thanh Dang, to make the report to the council. The public hearing before the Planning Commission on July 9, a hearing that took many residents by surprise, was not advertised in a local newspaper, presumably the Daily News-Record although that was not specified. The department’s report took barely two minutes and no council member commented on the mistake.
When a topic gets that sort of short shrift at a meeting, it is often a sign that council has been informed in advance and members have chosen not to speak about it.
Todd Rhea, the attorney for The Link’s prospective developer and the primary salesman for the project, described the delay as an opportunity. He gave no new information about the facilitation process the council asked for six weeks ago, other than to say the facilitators were almost selected.
Rhea said that process would take place before The Link is brought back to the Planning Commission. He said the project should come back before the Planning Commission sometime in the winter. By then, there will be at least three new members out of seven on the commission since the issue first came before them in July.
Rhea asked, rhetorically, what that facilitation process might look like, but did not answer his own question other than to say it might look like a city engagement process put on by Public Works.
The only response to Rhea’s comments was Mayor Deanna Reed asking that citizens be informed of sessions organized by the so-far anonymous facilitators, “So that whoever wants to be a part of that can be a part of that.” Minutes later she shut down two citizens who attempted to speak about The Link. Public comment at council meetings is allowed only for public hearings or for items not on the agenda, and the mayor used that as a justification to not let the citizens speak.
Council member Dany Fleming, who had originally set a deadline of Sept. 23 for council to hear the results of the facilitation and vote on the project, did not comment except to repeat what Rhea had already said.
Although the meeting lasted an hour and a half, less than seven minutes of it was dedicated to the report on the error and its implications for The Link. Council members normally close the meeting by discussing what events they have attended since the last meeting. Those comments Tuesday nights lasted twice as long as The Link discussion.
The error will push consideration of The Link into 2026, an election year for the council seats held by Dany Fleming and Monica Robinson.
The council also heard reports from the Boys and Girls Clubs of Harrisonburg and Rockingham County and from the Central Shenandoah Planning District Commission. Slideshows for those presentations can be found here.