In the end, the details just couldn't be hammered out quickly enough, there were just too many specifics left unspecified, and Duluth's landmark legislation, our long-worked-on and long-needed Unified Development Code, just couldn't be brought to a vote Monday, as so many of us hoped.
The Duluth City Council delayed action instead because questions persisted about outdoor-display signs, college- student housing and other critical, gotta-get-'em-right details contained within the nearly 350-page document.
The code, or UDC, has been in the works since June 2006. That was when the City Council adopted the Comprehensive Plan, a document reflecting Duluthians' priorities, their vision for growth and their statement of what can be built where and what parts of town should be left natural. The code is the implementation of that vision, setting specific zoning and other measures. The code is that important. Duluth hasn't had an updated one in more than 50 years.
Passage Monday of a new Unified Development Code certainly was preferred, as the council now has gone on a monthlong summer break. The delay puts in jeopardy the city administration's ability to put the code in place and to be sure it's in practice by the start of the 2011 construction season.
But a delay is what we have. And if it's necessary to ensure the code is complete and correct, down to its most minute details, then administrators and others are left to cope, readjust and still prevail. Administrators will need to work a little more quickly, but with just as much precision, once the council returns to meet a construction-
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season deadline. City councilors can help them out by making the code their top priority, and by passing it as quickly as possible, after the summer break is done.
