Susan Hunnicutt, public relations organizer for Keep Auburn Lovely, went before the Auburn City Council on Tuesday, Jan. 19, to thank the City Council members who attended Keep Auburn Lovely's citizens forum on Monday, but Hunnicutt also had another idea to introduce.
During the open forum period at Tuesday night's City Council meeting, Hunnicutt proposed the idea of an external citizens' task force on growth with as many as 12-19 members.
"Over this four-and-a-half-month moratorium, I would like to see a task force made up of citizens," Hunnicutt said. "If you could find someone who could be more objective, or at least everyone check their hidden agendas at the door, something valuable could be gained."
During Keep Auburn Lovely's Citizens' Forum Monday night, Bill Wright, chairman of Tuscaloosa's Student Housing Task Force, highlighted the issues Tuscaloosa faced during the height of the expansion of the University of Alabama over the past decade.
"Our situation is much different in the fact that we've already gone through a comprehensive planning program, two downtown task forces in two different years that were three years apart and also extensive citizen involvement in the Downtown Master Plan that's gone on for over year," said Auburn Mayor Bill Ham.
Tuscaloosa is a much larger city than Auburn. The city of Tuscaloosa is home to 96,000 individuals. Auburn is home to 56,000.
Additionally, the University of Alabama has expanded to more than 37,000 students, up almost 10,000 since 2009, according to its admissions office. Auburn had record enrollment this year, but still sits at 27,000 students with relatively small growth.
"I get the gist that we're already ahead of that (the problems Tuscaloosa has faced)," said Ward 3 Councilwoman Beth Witten. "We already have a good relationship with our university. We're already ahead of the curb on our parking. We already know what our issues are. We've already addressed commercial [development]."
Ham also highlighted other key differences between Tuscaloosa and Auburn, including the distances between campus and downtown. The soul of Auburn's campus, Samford Hall, sits directly across the street from the heart of downtown.
In Tuscaloosa, downtown is close to 1.5 miles from Denny Chimes and the quad, the center of Alabama's campus. According to members of the City Council, issues of development sprawl in Tuscaloosa are different from the issues Auburn faces with downtown area student housing development.
"We have to have economic growth," Hunnicutt said. "We have to have an increasing tax base, but I don't want to do it at the expense of the soul of Auburn — why we all come back. If you were to decide to appoint a citizen-led task force, I wouldn't object."
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