Rachel O. Flynn, Richmond's controversial and once-outspoken planning director, has resigned, along with her top deputy, Brooke Hardin.
On Wednesday, Flynn confirmed her resignation effective April 30, and Hardin's resignation is effective at the end of March. Flynn said she has been offered a job with a private consulting firm and that Hardin has accepted a planning position with the city of Fairfax.
In a statement late Wednesday night, Mayor Dwight C. Jones thanked Flynn for her service to the city. "We are grateful for her contributions to the city of Richmond and appreciative of the time she spent with us," Jones said.
As Richmond's top planner, Flynn guided a widely praised update of the city's downtown master plan and attracted praise and scorn as she criticized what she regarded as inappropriate development.
"It's been an amazing experience to work for the city and be able to have done all we've done, particularly with the master plan, and how the community came together and really created a bold and excellent master plan," said Flynn, director of the Department of Planning and Development Review.
City Council President Kathy C. Graziano said she regrets losing Flynn and Hardin and said Flynn has left a positive mark on Richmond.
"I think Rachel brought a passion for urban design to the city, which changed how we approach urban development," she said.
However, critics suggest that development and investment have been stifled by what is seen as Flynn's rigid style.
Councilman Bruce W. Tyler said Flynn's "my way or the highway" approach led out-of-town developers to bypass Richmond. He also complained that Flynn had once forced a developer to replace more than $20,000 in landscaping even though it had been planted, he said, in accordance with an approved plan. Flynn said she had not signed off on any plan when she asked the developer to plant about five ornamental trees at what she said was minimal cost.
Flynn, an architect who received a master's in public administration from Harvard University, was hired in 2006 by then-Mayor L. Douglas Wilder's administration. However, she took on an increasingly lower profile with more limited availability to reporters after Jones took over City Hall in January 2009.
Flynn declined Wednesday to comment on how her role had changed.
In early 2010, the City Council approved Jones' plan to consolidate the Department of Community Development, which Flynn had led, into a new and expanded Department of Economic and Community Development overseen by Deputy Chief Administrative Officer Peter H. Chapman.
Months earlier, Flynn raised eyebrows when she bluntly and publicly rejected a planning commissioner's suggestion that her staff continue to work with developers on the proposed Echo Harbour condominiums along the city's eastern riverfront. Tyler, whose architectural firm Baskervill has worked on the Echo Harbour project, said Flynn should have been fired.
"I think the message now should be that the city is now open for business and we can have responsible development," George Ross, co-developer of Echo Harbour, said Wednesday. "You need to have a compromise where you can have parkland, development and revenue for the city."
Hardin, deputy director under Flynn since 2008, did not respond to a call seeking comment.
"I'm extremely disappointed that they're gone," Richmond developer Robin Miller said. "Their shoes will be extremely hard to fill."
wjones@timesdispatch.com
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