Leaders at Eden Village explain why they filed lawsuit against mayor of Springfield

Dr. David Brown is the founder of the Gathering Tree, which is a nonprofit in Springfield. He says one of its projects is Eden Village.

Eden Village is a village of tiny homes for the homeless along east Division Street. Recently, Dr. Brown asked the city to re-zone the land along west Division to allow more tiny homes to be built. Dr. Brown says before the June 17 vote, he asked for special accommodations for the residents as they are both physically and mentally disabilities.

He says Mayor McClure told him he would be in favor of the re-zoning, but he then voted no. The re-zoning request failed by one vote.

Dr. Brown says he is not suing Mayor McClure for voting no, but because of his response to why he voted no. Mayor McClure told a local newspaper why he changed his mind. He said and I quote, "I had been inclined all along to support this. What made me change my mind was the filing they made with the city in early June requesting reasonable accommodations under the Americans with disabilities act.." He continued, "I viewed that as basically being threatening."

Dr. Brown says he had several people contact him to say what the Mayor said was not right. Therefore, Dr. Brown says he called his lawyers. In a statement, city officials say they met with leaders of Eden Village to discuss other ways to move the project forward and were disappointed to hear about the lawsuit.

Dr. Brown says he would drop the lawsuit if they could come to a resolution.

The city of Springfield says it considered The Gathering Tree a community partner. It says it had allocated about $300,000 to help make the first Eden Village project a reality.

The city released this statement Friday after news of the lawsuit broke:

The city of Springfield released this statement to KY3 News:

"The city of Springfield has considered The Gathering Tree, LLC a community partner and our staff has worked with them extensively to develop Eden Village. At the direction of Mayor Ken McClure and city council, the city also allocated approximately $300,000 to assist them with infrastructure improvements that made the development possible.

A second proposed Eden Village development at 3303 W. Division required a zoning change that failed to pass city council. Six votes were required for approval and the measure received five affirmative votes.

In this case, there was a protest petition that required a higher threshold of affirmative votes. If owners of 30 percent of the property within 185 feet of the property proposed to be changed, sign a petition, a 2/3-majority vote is required. This protest petition constituted 72.8 percent.

City officials met with Eden Village partners recently to discuss other paths forward. Alternate approaches offered to them included applying for a planned development or waiting until the city had time to review and possibly update our zoning regulations.

We were disappointed to learn through media reports that they have instead decided to file a lawsuit.

The city of Springfield has not been served with a lawsuit and therefore, officials have not had a chance to review."