I seem to remember that you've made some pro-democracy statements in the past. Are you opposed to the part of democracy that allows people to testify to public officials about policies they disagree with?Twincitizen is ready to go to the barracks over a minor piece of the plan. As was noted, the plan is first of all, merely advisory, and second, is accepting of taller towers, and third, it attempts to move towards the holy grail of form based zoning code that everybody here is always so hot and bothered about.
The plan is not, in fact, merely advisory. If adopted by the council it will be official city policy. The ramification is that it will be more difficult to rezone from the OR3 that currently mostly exists there to B4N, which would allow taller buildings as of right, as well as eliminate parking minimums and encourage mixed-use and good urban design principles.
The fact that it claims to be accepting of taller towers is another weakness of the plan, since it conflicts with the height proscriptions. This will lead to conflicts similar to those that came up with the Opus Development, where the Marcy Homes plan said both that heights should be "what zoning allows" and four stories in Dinkytown. The effect will be that policymakers will do whatever they want.
Personally I'm not much of a fan of form-based zoning, but I think that getting specific about form can be useful for concentrated, form-defined districts. I'm don't think that the Loring Hill district is consistent enough in form to merit this treatment.