The Zoning board submitted anew its original proposed amendments to the Saipan Zoning Law and Maps of 2008, about two months after Gov. Benigno R. Fitial vetoed House Local Bill 17-26.<\/p>\n
Zoning administrator Therese T. Ogumoro, in a letter to House Speaker Eli D. Cabrera, said that their submission contents is the same proposed law that they previously presented to the Saipan and Northern Island Legislative Delegation.<\/p>\n
Ogumoro noted in her May 14 letter that all technical errors identified both by the delegation and the Zoning Office have been incorporated within the latest proposal.<\/p>\n
\u201cAgain, the office and board are strongly requesting that this proposed zoning law, as presented in final form, be passed as it is,\u201d said Ogumoro, adding that the passing of the law is \u201cvery important\u201d to effectuate the critical and long-awaited improvements to zoning on Saipan.<\/p>\n
Efforts to get Zoning\u2019s proposed amendments to the 4-year-old law approved was stalled following Rep. Stanley Torres\u2019 submission of his own version of zoning amendments through HLB 17-26, which would have made massive changes to the zoning law.<\/p>\n
Citing significant legal concerns, particularly \u201cspot zoning,\u201d Fitial vetoed the bill on March 22.<\/p>\n
When asked for comment, Zoning board chair Diego C. Blanco said in a phone interview that he is hopeful that their version of the proposed amendments would pass the delegation this time.<\/p>\n
These amendments, he said, are based on sound zoning policies and principles and include public comments they received as well as careful planning on the part of Zoning Office that spanned for two years.<\/p>\n
Blanco said he respects Torres and any other representatives who may have any amendments to the zoning law but he called on these lawmakers to work with Zoning in improving the law.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe prefer that they work with us so we can discuss their concerns further. After all, we\u2019re all reasonable men here. I believe that Mr. Torres is also a reasonable man,\u201d Blanco told Saipan Tribune.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Zoning board submitted anew its original proposed amendments to the Saipan Zoning Law and Maps of 2008, about two months after Gov. Benigno R. Fitial vetoed House Local Bill 17-26.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-161848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=161848"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161848\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}