The marathon Braddock Road Metro Small Area Plan meetings started again earlier this week, and now that the neighborhood has had a taste of the City's new approach, it's worthwhile to stop and make a few observations.
Let's start by acknowledging the obvious: City staff and their hired guns like Kramer & Associates and Goody Glancy are not about to broker a compromise but have regrouped with a new approach. Their goal appears to be persuading us that we must accept the juggernaut of development that has been proposed for the Braddock Road and historic Parker-Gray areas.
It's already clear the technique will be to show us how we are all wrong, that the City is right, and that the plan should go forward as originally drafted. We will be worn down by endless meetings packed with outsiders and will be divided up to prevent grass-roots leaders from emerging and dominating or driving the process.
In fact, it seems the City is hoping the consultants can even make us clamor for more. Recall that at the September 24 meeting David Dixon waxed on about a client, a community which initially resisted millions of square feet of development. We were told that after Goody Clancy worked their magic, the neighborhood overnight turned pro-density and even pressed their elected leaders to move faster. A lesson for us?
This is also the only plausible way to explain why Kramer conducted all of those one-on-one interviews but failed to probe for commonality of interest, on which compromise could be then be brokered relatively quickly and efficiently.
Such commonality does exist, on issues ranging from transportation, density and public housing and the City is in possession of a group-written white paper with ten major demands. It's safe to say nearly everyone in this community holds at least one of those demands dear to their hearts, whether it is to reduce density, deal better with traffic, increase open space or disperse public housing.
In fact, where in this new schedule do residents get to vocalize their concerns and views? It just isn't on the agenda.
This new approach is also the only way to explain P&Z Director Faroll Hamer's rigidity, scolding us that everyone has to attend every meeting, telling us that certain topics (like Potomac Yard) are off limits and that she is not going to do penance for past history.
No, the City has its own vision and is not interested in our opinion. The impetus behind Kramer's approach was to find differences and then report back that this is a fractured community, thus emplowering City staff to promote themselves as the paternal Solomons ready to steer a neighborhood that "doesn't know what it wants."
And can there also be anything more cynical than Kramer's findings that many people felt that getting through the last protracted planning cycle depended mostly on stamina and that it was a matter of "last man left standing"? The new process recommended by Kramer is designed to be more of them same, starting from the ground up again in the hopes that neighborhood stalwarts will simply drop from exhaustion or give up.
That brings us to the idea of "divide and conquer," which some on this blog have used to describe the City's new death march process for the plan.
This, to the Growler, is a useful phrase. It's certainly been applied by City bureaucrats not only to people but to the issues, with public housing being yanked out and put on its own track in the Braddock East Concept Plan and with the Ad Hoc Transportation Task Force given license to run amok with febrile grandiosity, aflame with the prospect of federal transit bucks.
But the phrase "divide and conquer" lacks some extra dimension. And the Growler thinks that missing element is the concept of political re-education, which chimes nicely with the fact that these meetings are being billed as "educational" sessions.
It's one thing to genuinely bring light to the uninformed, but in fact many in this neighborhood already grasp most of the concepts and even many of the nuances, including density and FAR (which at bottom both involve packing more households with their inevitable automobiles into the community) and the dilemma the City has put financially strapped ARHA into by its rock-ribbed support for Resolution 830.
No, there are already inklings that these "education" sessions will be used to counter points the neighborhood has already absorbed and understood.
Mr. Dixon, for example, has mentioned several times that the consultants are prepared to demonstrate that Braddock Place was the worst possible place for retail due to lack of foot traffic.
The Growler can't wait to hear that explanation. Braddock Place has four substantial office buildings stuffed with hundreds of workers. It's adjacent to a Metro station which serves several thousand riders each day, and is flanked by two enormous high rise condo and apartment buildings as well as the greater Parker-Gray District to the south.
If this site should never have been devoted to retail (which means the planners of 1984 were fools), then what's the prospects for the other retail planned for this area? Maybe Engin Artemel needs to defend himself. Or is this just another cynical come-on that if we accept even more density, maybe the City can make retail work after all?
Interestingly, last Tuesday's "education" sessions concealed as much as they revealed. Have we not been lectured by Ms. Hamer that we don't understand the difference between "public housing" and "affordable" or "workforce housing"? If so, why did the first slide from Rhae Parks of Abt & Associates lump public housing, Section 8, and work force housing affordable up to 120% of area median income into the same pot labeled "affordable housing"?
Doesn't Ms. Parks get it, or did the City not vet its consultants ahead of time?
And speaking of "affordable housing," did anyone notice how P&Z's Web page on the Braddock Plan is now packed with links to stories about "mixed income" communities, undoubtedly supplied by the consultants?
This has always been a mixed income community, but it looks like the City is preparing to hark back to the theme that "Parker-Gray can't lose its middle class." Meaning we are not going to lose public housing but in fact will be stuffed with affordable housing for pampered City staff or milked for developer contributions to promote such housing elsewhere in town.
Ms. Parks' presentation was less informative than the ARHA public meeting the previous night, and she seemed unfamiliar with some of the details of Alexandria's public housing crisis. For example, she stated repeatedly that public housing authorities couldn't incur debt. That may be technically true, but most of us know that the impending foreclosure on ARHA's $6 million mortgage at Glebe Park is the fulcrum for the proposed redevelopment of James Bland. At Tuesday's meeting we had to have ARHA staff explain how the authority managed to incur this obligation in the first place (the answer: by mortgaging the "market rate" units at Glebe Park to carry the public housing units).
As others have noted here, there's still no information either from the consultants, from ARHA staff or from P&Z about how many market rate units will be placed at Bland and how dense the revitalized project will be. The Growler is beginning to understand why Ms. Hamer rose in a panic to protest the Hope VI application at the September meeting of the ARHA Redevelopment Work Group. The cat's going to be let out of the bag soon and that doesn't dovetail nicely with P&Z's tactic to split off the Braddock East public housing review and put it on a separate track that concludes well after the Braddock Plan has been approved.
Equally elusive was Jeff Farner and David Dixon's presentation on FAR and density. The illustrations of FAR using a map and styrofoam blocks were only semi-useful, because we've seen these models at Braddock Road and ICCA meetings before. What Mr. Farner didn't disclose until pressed is that affordable housing units in a development don't count toward FAR (as someone suggested earlier in a comment here). And he touched only lightly on the differences between the affordable housing density bonus and developers' "voluntary" contributions.
In the end, the real conundrum is that City staff and their minions are trying to finesse process solutions to issues that are inherently political in nature.
The crux of the Braddock Road controversy is about fair share -- our neighborhood's fair share not just of public housing but of density, of traffic, and of the burden of creating revenue for a free-spending but strapped City government.
That's a political question, not something that the Yankees from Boston can massage with flip charts, PowerPoint presentation and charrettes.
And the battle over our fair share is one that will have to be fought politically.
39 comments:
Perhaps the consultants can read Michael Lee Pope's article in the Gazette on the Watson trial....
Mistrial in Murder Case
New trial to begin in December.
By Michael Lee Pope
October 17, 2007
Michael Lee Pope/Gazette Packet
The 800 block of North Patrick Street was the scene of a double homicide in the early morning hours of April 19, when two men were found suffering from gunshot wounds in the middle of the road.
Alexandria Police officer Joe Kirby was driving north on Patrick Street shortly after 2 a.m. last spring when he saw something unusual in the middle of the road. At first, he was unsure about what was blocking the center left lane — a major traffic artery that would soon be clogged with motorists during the morning commute. But as his police cruiser moved closer, the outline of a human body could be seen in the glaring white illumination of the officer’s headlights. Officer Kirby got out of the car, then noticed another body in the road near the western sidewalk. He called for medics, but it was too late.
Both men were dead — gunned down in plain sight of several witnesses in one of the city’s roughest neighborhoods.
A team of detectives immediately began investigating, fanning out through the neighborhood in an effort to find out who might have shot the two men. But the eyewitnesses apparently gave contradictory witness statements, and nobody was willing to come forward and testify in open court to what they had seen. According to court records, four different eyewitnesses said they were fearful of retribution for cooperating with police. Undeterred, Detective Tom Durkin filed a search warrant for the public-housing unit on Euille Street where a suspect was staying with his mother.
"The four subjects were standing near the entrance to the alley that runs off the 800 block of N. Patrick Street near 1000 Montgomery Street talking when suddenly ‘Darrell’ produced a gun and shot one of the victims in the head," wrote Durkin in an affidavit supporting the request for a search warrant. "The witnesses turned to run away and heard several more gunshots."
THE "DARRELL" THAT Durkin mentioned in his affidavit turned out to be Darrell Watson, a 19-year-old Chatham Square resident with a checkered past. Court documents indicate that by the time he turned 18, Watson had already amassed a rap sheet that included possession of a firearm on school property, burglary and grand larceny. This week, prosecutors hoped to try Watson in Circuit Court on two counts of murder and related gun charges. In court on Monday morning, they readily admitted that their case lacked any physical evidence — no murder weapon was never found, no DNA evidence or incriminating fingerprints. The case against Watson rested solely on the testimony of eyewitnesses.
"This case is fundamentally about the courage of these witnesses to come forward and render justice in the face of this senseless crime," said Commonwealth’s Attorney S. Randolph Sengel during his opening statement. "There’s a point at which members in a community say enough is enough."
But the case fell apart late Monday afternoon when Watson’s attorney Gary Smith learned about one witness statement that seemed to contradict the details of the other three. A statement by Rodney Jenkins — recorded by Alexandria Police shortly after crime — was never shared with the defense attorney during the discovery process before the trial. For a case that rests solely on a handful of eyewitnesses — one of whom admitted that he was walking the streets in search of crack — the possibility that a witnesses could offer testimony contradicting key facts would be of heightened importance. So Chief Judge Donald Haddock declared a mistrial Tuesday morning, setting a new trial date for December.
"The statement this witness gave contradicted much of the evidence put on by the prosecution," said Smith in a telephone interview Tuesday afternoon.
IN COURT ON Monday, the prosecution presented almost all of its case against Darrell Watson, and the only witness prosecutors had yet to call was a ballistics expert before closing their case. The evidence included two eyewitnesses who said they saw Watson shoot both of the victims as well as a handful of other witnesses who placed him near the scene of the crime. Yet Smith carefully grilled the eyewitnesses on why they were roaming through the public-housing units near the Braddock Street Metro at 2 a.m., an effort to undercut their credibility.
"They were looking for drugs," Smith told the jurors during his opening statement. "Are these people you can trust, or are there character issues?"
With the mistrial declared Tuesday morning, Smith’s defense of Watson never got off the starting blocks. It remains unclear what defense — if any — the Watson’s attorney might be able to present. Court records show that Smith successfully received a $2,500 stipend from the court to hire a private investigator to help track down witnesses. Witnesses subpoenaed to appear in court include the defendant’s mother and girlfriend, although the newly discovered witness to the crime might feature prominently in a future trial.
"I didn’t think this witness statement fell into the category of information that we needed to share with the defense," said Sengel. "Clearly, the court took a different view."
I cant help but note:
-- Watson has a checkered criminal history - but somehow he lives in Chatham Square in a taxpayer funded townhome - gee I wonder if that might happen at the "new and improved" Bland
-- All 4 "witnesses" were "looking for drugs, specifically crack"
Some blogger on here tried to argue that we were just making "assumptions" asking why peopl,e are out at 2 AM in the morning at Bland. Guess the DA and ARHA didnt get their story straight....I thought the projects were safe and all the problems are caused by guests.
"In the end, the real conundrum is that City staff and their minions are trying to finesse process solutions to issues that are inherently political in nature."
My god, its great how you can sum up all the issues into one concise statement.
They keep trying to make public housing an issue of conscience and cost when its really about policy and politics.
Well said, Growler, very well said! More charade, more lies. All more of the same.
It would be so much easier if our city officials and staff could be trusted. What an awakening it was to move to Alexandria and find out that they are so unworthy.
As you pointed out in an ealier post, we already have good neighbors, we already have a wide range of incomes, our inventory of available, affordable housing is huge compared to almost anywhere else within the beltway - try buying a shack in Del Ray! - and we are a regenerating neighborhood that is on the way back up - despite many decades of city mismanagement. We can outlast them just as we have so far.
Growler makes excellent points.
Please, can everyone who has not already done so EMAIL the City Council and tell them you demand compliance with the fair share report.
In my view, the Hope VI Bland/Glebe proposal is unacceptable as it merely dilutes, but doesn't disperse, the public housing units in PG. And don't get me started on bailing out ARHA with our tax dollars....
"Yet Smith carefully grilled the eyewitnesses on why they were roaming through the public-housing units near the Braddock Street Metro at 2 a.m., an effort to undercut their credibility.
"They were looking for drugs," Smith told the jurors during his opening statement. "Are these people you can trust, or are there character issues?"
"
I wonder how Euille and his vision of "new and improved" public housing are going to change situations like this. We all know why people are out at 2 AM around here but whenever we say it to Council or at Planning meetings, the bureaucrats stick their head in the sand.
Dear Growler,
I also found it amusing that the City’s website has a link to an article criticizing the "Debunking Portland" article that you posted a link to last month.
First, thank you for posting that link, which did an excellent job at pointing out how the "planners paradise" of Portland is less rosy than most planners admit.
But, the fact that P&Z posted a rebuke of this article on their own website shows two things:
1) They read this blog and are truly afraid of common citizens getting information from a source other than City Hall, and
2) City staff is in no means impartial here.
About #2 – isn't it the role of City Staff supposed to be impartial? Instead, they are acting here as the mouthpieces of developers, going so far as to post these links, which are all singing the praises of the high-density developments that they (P&Z staff) love and that make their developer friends richer.
Incidentally, the rebuttal article about Portland is written by the "Congress for the New Urbanism" which is hardly reputable outside the elitist worlds of architecture and planning. I’d always had my fears that P&Z was really just pushing a high-density agenda, without giving a darn about the community. Now, I’m convinced.
Thanks again for your hard work. I hope it pays off for us, and I sure hope that City Council sees what’s really going on here.
"THE "DARRELL" THAT Durkin mentioned in his affidavit turned out to be Darrell Watson, a 19-year-old Chatham Square resident with a checkered past. Court documents indicate that by the time he turned 18, Watson had already amassed a rap sheet that included possession of a firearm on school property, burglary and grand larceny."
It's hard to reconcile this with ARHA's claim that it does background checks and applies a "one strike you're out" policy. How many more deaths and maimings will it take before ARHA begins to take the safety of its residents and its neighbors seriously?
"Incidentally, the rebuttal article about Portland is written by the "Congress for the New Urbanism" which is hardly reputable outside the elitist worlds of architecture and planning. I’d always had my fears that P&Z was really just pushing a high-density agenda, without giving a darn about the community. Now, I’m convinced.
Thanks again for your hard work. I hope it pays off for us, and I sure hope that City Council sees what’s really going on here."
What makes you think Council and Planning 'n Zoning aren't on the same page? Planning staff are sock puppets for Council.... That's why, as the lead story states clearly, it's a political manouver. For the n-teenth time, as I say over and over, it is a case of outlasting the council co-conspirators, headed by that pirate Mayor. Brava, Growler!!
As said before, it's all about Density, Public Housing, Transportation, and Open-space...all together. They really can't be considered apart.
Farrol Hamer's hand is becoming clearer and clearer, the more she sets up her lackeys to do her bidding. What's changed from the "previous" OLD Braddock Plan, compared to the NEW Braddock Plan?
It's the same ol' same ol' but with new faces?
Another problem no one wants to throw on the table is the utter failure of current crop of civic activists as evidenced by the Alexandria Federation of Civic Associations aka Alexandria Federation of Blowhards. If in doubt, all you need to do attend their meetings and any doubt about why we lose will be erased.
Just consider the Arlington Federation. Influential, independent, professional, inclusive -- attend their meetings, then attend our hapless countepart, again all doubt will be erased.
The Politburo had more turnover in its core leadership and was more inclusive than our "Fed" and its lifers on its BOD.
You right, growler, the City "manafactures consent," but having dullards (and I do not necessararily refer to the chairs) controlling the Fed destroys any chance at effective opposition to city policies.
We need to look in the mirror. Not we actually, but they. And you know who are.
Here is how the endgame will go down. A few more months of meetings will take place. Consultants will hold forth on the value of density, height, mixed use, etc. You will actually begin to believe some of this planning speak. A plan with densities and heights virtually similar to what was presented before will be published and docketed for planning commission. They'll hold the hearing and everyone will come & speak. Some will wear t-shirts (save Parker-Gray, etc.) and some will hold placards. Ultimately the city and the pro development group will mobilize more speakers and the planning commision will approve the plan. There may be a lone dissenter or it may even go 5-2 but it's passing no matter what. The next weekend the City Council will rubber stamp the plan (the heavy lifting having been done previously by the planning commission) and it will take effect. Don't you see? You live in a city who's council is all of the same party and all want the same thing. They appoint the planning commission; don't you think they've already stacked that body with people who share their ideology? You can rant and rave on this site all you want but there is nothing you can do to stop this plan from going through. The die is cast! Council needs this density in Parker Gray to create the tax revenue that will allow them to continue their free-spending ways. Don't be so naive as to think that you can de-rail this train. It's coming fast! Wake up! Do you think all these meetings are to listen to what you have to say? Of course not. They are to tell you what to think! Don't you folks know? Didn't your parents tell you? You just can't fight City Hall!
Wow! "resigned" really laid it out for you didn't he. The Growler is right. This is a political issue. You won't defeat added density and height by writing on this blog or by attending one hundred "town hall" meetings. The only way to defeat it is to get 4 out of 7 planning commission members or 4 out of 7 city council members to agree with you and vote against it. Have you begun the process of getting those 4 votes? What are the names of the 4 people on each body who you can get to vote with you? Have you identified them? Have you started lobbying them personally? Inviting them to grassroots meetings that you have organized to explain your point? This isn't high school civics class this is the real world where these kinds of decisions are made over lunches where hands get shaken, backs get slapped and favors promised. Are Parker Gray residents organized in any way? Are you having weekly meetings to strategize how you will fight this? Have you hired your own consultants and your own lawyers? Are you passing out leaflets to every neighborhood resident and assigning block captains to whip up support? Do you have a leader who is organizing the opposition? Are you feeding information to local papers laying out your arguments? More importantly, what is it you actually want to see? Do you have a pro-active vision for the neighborhood that counters the one proposed by staff or is this just NIMBYism? If you can't organize and fight this politically by bringing an overwhelming show of support and demanding commission and council members vote your way then you are bound to lose. This is hardball folks. Treat it as such.
"Yankees from Boston"
Nice one Growler. Way to paint the current battle in the light of past conflicts. Is this some underhanded attempt to spark animosity against Dixon? His firm is from Boston right?
Anyway, we all know the Yankees are from New York.
Would someone who attended Saturday's educational workshops be willing to post their impressions? I couldn't make it and was wondering how it went.
"Nice one Growler. Way to paint the current battle in the light of past conflicts. Is this some underhanded attempt to spark animosity against Dixon? His firm is from Boston right?"
Read the article again. It's about the fact that consultants (no matter how qualified) can't fix or even mediate problems that are political in nature. If these consultants were truly brought in to broker compromise between Parker-Gray and the politicians, where and when will a direct dialog between those two parties take place? It's nowhere on the schedule.
Bring in the politicians to sit down one on one with the community, and the Growler will start to believe in the integrity of this process.
Why do you think Mayor Euille is avoiding this neighborhood? He and City Manager Jim Hartmann want surrogates to handle the issues and present a fait accompli for Planning Commission and Council review early next year.
And when the consultants and Faroll Hamer say "no one will get everything they want," do they included elected officials?
Growler - I'm with you 1000% on your last post. Where the hell is our City Council's leadership in guiding the process of developing the Braddock area?
Why should concerned private citizens be expected to spend more time at Braddock Rd planning meetings than our elected city officials who get to impose their will and ignore ours? THEY are too busy? Folks check their dockets to see what they spend their time on. Mayoral Bling is an outrage and I can't see him head to Richmond fast enough.
City Coucil should have the balls to show up to every meeting and answer questions. But, as a group, they don't.
I want to line them up and ask them to raise their hand if they support re-evaluating Resolution 830. If they don't we should know ion advance. Do they support acting on the results of the Fair Share study of the last millenium? If they won't, we should know that in advance. Why doesn't the immense building boom in the Eisenhower valley and elsewhere provide for substantial replacement public housing stock that would permit drastic reduction in PG? Did Council just learn that ARHA was in trouble and would need to dump its properties? Why is PG on the road towards carrying a disproportionate burden in a scramble to bail out ARHA that everyone knew was coming since the 1990's? If the City is only wiling to disburse public housing to satisfy Hope VI requirements, we should know that in advance.
I'm too focused on the public housing issue you might think? Not if you consider that what is built in PG in the next decade and how much value it holds long term depends FIRST on how much public housing remains to drag values down. That is simply a belief I'd like someone to refute.
The amenities PG gets out of the deal will depend on how much value it represents to the City. I just hope that our value will extend beyond being the dumping ground for Resolution 830's mandated concentration of poverty.
Would Res 830 survive if other neighborhodds KNEW they were about to get their fair share?
"Would someone who attended Saturday's educational workshops be willing to post their impressions? I couldn't make it and was wondering how it went."
They actually posted the notes from the last meeting. Looks quite interesting. Obvious though that the consultant knows little about ARHA.
As for Saturday, it doesnt help much when you send a bunch of folks past Adkins in the middle of the day. Although the looks on several people's faces were priceles......
"Another problem no one wants to throw on the table is the utter failure of current crop of civic activists as evidenced by the Alexandria Federation of Civic Associations aka Alexandria Federation of Blowhards."
Did you notice that their October 24 meeting agenda includes a review of the Ad Hoc Transportation Master Plan also public comments?
"City Coucil should have the balls to show up to every meeting and answer questions. But, as a group, they don't."
Agreed. At the moment they are operating through their surrogates including some carefully selected citizens. Smart Growth's Schwartz actually stood up and told the rest of us that he will wait to discuss to policy while the rest of us get educated. He was over the top.
"Both men were dead — gunned down in plain sight of several witnesses in one of the city’s roughest neighborhoods."
Yet somehow and some way, density and "new and improved" public housing will fix this...
"The only way to defeat it is to get 4 out of 7 planning commission members or 4 out of 7 city council members to agree with you and vote against it. "
Vote against "what" exactly. The inherent problem with Resolution 830 is you are asking 4 Council members to vote for increased crime and concentrations of poverty in their "areas". Since 3 of them come from Delray, I highly doubt you can convince any of them to bring the PG party to a neighborhood near them.
Thats the essential problem. Thse issues that need to be resolved are political and policy-based, but the people solving them would have to go against their own interests to make any type of change.
What I have realized is the process is fixed so why fight it. They want density, they want revenue, and they want no gentrification whatsoever. Thats what they want. How do you stop from getting what they want when no one else in the City is going to support things like deconcentration of poverty?
Frankly what I am waiting for is when they move hundreds of people into the neighborhood. Then they will get the positive (revenue) and negative (even more pissed off folks) of density.
"Is this some underhanded attempt to spark animosity against Dixon? His firm is from Boston right?"
I cannot figure out what he is here for. If the City is not going to change Resolution 830 and wont move to a voucher model, and if the changes to public housing arent coming for another 25 years as even they acknowledge, then what does he contribute to the discussion?
His presentations and words are great but this isnt the CHA. The CHA was flexible and made adjustments and compromises to help as many residents as they could.
What the heck compromise has ARHA made? What adjustment in policy have they considered?
"Is this some underhanded attempt to spark animosity against Dixon? His firm is from Boston right?"
So far Goody Clancy seems adequate to the task. Warm, explanatory, adequate. What I don't think Dixon understands is context. I surmise that is the Growler's reference to Yankee. Nobody until you live her for a year or so gets the discrimination that is was and continues. The spa court been much quieter since the barbershop moved and the spa court closed. Look how other neighborhood citizens are handling the BRT issue. Or when Artemel stood up and spoke. The man was reliving his past decisions. Vision is too generous a word but ultimately he and other former city employees promote visions that are 25-30 years old. Times change and at least some of the consultants were honest enough to admit it. What's wrong is the vision statement and if Hamer is taking her direction from Council then Council is all too happy to lift its collective leg on Parker-Gray. At least I give Krupicka points for repeatedly coming to the Braddock meetings.
"At least I give Krupicka points for repeatedly coming to the Braddock meetings."
Don't forget Del Pepper; she has been pretty stalwart about attending too.
""At least I give Krupicka points for repeatedly coming to the Braddock meetings."
Don't forget Del Pepper; she has been pretty stalwart about attending too."
While I give them "points" I dont understadn why this is such a big deal. So they show up. OK.....but does anything happen or change based on their attendance?
Krupicka asked APD at the last Council meeting why we have an 5-9 block radius east of the Braddock Metro that was such a complete mess. If he also attends these meetings, can he not put 2 + 2 together? Can he not bring up the inconvenient truth? Why has Pepper not spoken up and said a word?
You make a good point. They make a show of attending but it isn't clear if the discussion is swaying their position.
Perhaps they are afraid to interject themselves into the planning process, preferring the community work things through as a group.
But we're way past that point. Where is the political dialog?
"Mayoral Bling"
Too perfect. That's the funniest thing I've heard all day.
"You make a good point. They make a show of attending but it isn't clear if the discussion is swaying their position.
Perhaps they are afraid to interject themselves into the planning process, preferring the community work things through as a group.
But we're way past that point. Where is the political dialog?
"
well tonight is opportunity numero uno for them to step up to the plate and show they have learned something. The Council meeting tonight has on its docket the 6.5 million "loan" to ARHA to bail them out on Glebe Park. I am hoping to see a frank discussion on Comcast of the merits of this and the future of Resolution 830. I will make sure to keep any sharp or large objects away from the TV though....
"If these consultants were truly brought in to broker compromise between Parker-Gray and the politicians, where and when will a direct dialog between those two parties take place? It's nowhere on the schedule.
Bring in the politicians to sit down one on one with the community....
Why do you think Mayor Euille is avoiding this neighborhood? He and City Manager Jim Hartmann want surrogates to handle the issues and present a fait accompli for Planning Commission and Council review early next year."
You ask, why? It's precisely because Mayoral Bling has been talking to the developers already. What makes me upset is the money being spent on the Boston Gang and those who announce to us that they are the Experts. With an $85M city deficit, do we need "experts" to discuss "common sense"? I agree it's all about "re-education" camp, that the city is pushing its "developers' agenda" on us, and it makes me wonder what the city is afraid of from its own residents. If anything, the increased zoning density was thoughtlessly way over-sold in the past when it was adopted, and now the city is inflicting this mistake on us years later by plowing ahead. Why can't we have a carefully reconsidered evaluation of the smarts of this city blunder? I think the planning charade needs to be put on hold, and the city council hold a neighborhood forum to decide the policy first, and then proceed to develop the plan second.
Seems like this whole process is ASS-backwards.
Speaking of which, why wasn't Mayoral Bling "walking-the-walk" with us??? Are there more than just the trappings of an Imperial Presidency on display here? Although it was a nice day last Saturday, and the sandwiches were delicious, hasn't Mayoral Bling postponed his involvement long enough, based on his excuse after excuse? Thank you to the city for the sandwiches.
I think the City's biggest mistake was allowing the Monarch to be built prior to the Braddock plan being passed. The Monarch was a wake up call to many and has spurred us to get involved and pay attention.
The Monarch is, of course, hideous and huge. We hate it and it stands as an example of what the City will do to us if we don't fight back.
And, to add insult to injury, now the City is actually considering taking the $1 million density bonus the Monarch developer paid and using it to bail out ARHA. Surely, they can't be serious. ARHA and concentrated public housing is the single biggest sore point for the neighborhood.
And they wonder why people in this neighborhood are SO pissed with Mayor Bling and Council.
Speaking of ass-backwards...
no matter what happens, Bland is going to be redeveloped, right? As in, torn down and rebuilt?
Then why, oh why, am I looking out my window and seeing contractors replacing the storm doors? There is some interior work going on too, but can't tell what it is from here except to note that it involves a mitre saw. Gotta love ARHA: "We're broke and we are going to tear down Bland, so let's spend some money on putting on new storm doors."
By the same token, why did the city put up conduits for electricity (and gas?) meters on Bland and then... not install any meters?!?
I'm only half-joking when I say that all I want is a re-development of the Bland site that looks good enough for me to fool some other sucker into buying my place.
"I'm only half-joking when I say that all I want is a re-development of the Bland site that looks good enough for me to fool some other sucker into buying my place."
Did you not notice the giant public housing project across the street when you bought?
Now that you mention ASS-backwards, and we're not ONLY referring to Mayoral Bling....,
have you ALSO noticed that while Madison Street has been repaved to accommodate more intensive BUS traffic, roaring up and down this narrow street, day and nite (get used to it!!), nobody at the city had the presence of mind to bury the thousands of over-head cables and electric wires that front Adkins property before Madison was repaved. What an eyesoar!! (Look up, it's a bird, it's a plane, it's....ARHA Atkins electric wires!)
Does this mean the city intends to use this as a bargaining chip (crumb-throw to the resident taxpayers who the city considers the real sub-morons in this debate over the Braddock Metro Plan), or that someone just simply forgot to treat us as equal partners to Del Ray when they got their cables/electric wires buried as part of "neighborhood improvement," not just amenities held hostage under negotiation for more density.
Now that you mention ASS-backwards, and we're not only referring to Mayoral Bling....,
have you ALSO noticed that while Madison Street has been repaved to accommodate more intensive BUS traffic, roaring up and down, day and nite (get used to it!!), nobody at the city had the presence of mind to bury the thousands of over-head cables and electric wires that front Adkins property. What an eyesoar!!
Does this mean the city intends to use this as a bargaining chip (crumb-throw to the resident taxpayers who the city considers the real sub-morons in this debate over the Braddock Metro Plan), or that someone just simply forgot to treat us as equal partners to Del Ray when they got their cables/electric wires buried as part of "neighborhood improvement," not just amenities held hostage under negotiation for more density.
"Did you not notice the giant public housing project across the street when you bought?"
Truly, I think most people don't fully realize the extent of the problems associated with Bland and Adkins until you actually live across the street from them (or in them!) and endure the problems on a day to day basis. Otherwise, it's easy to bury your head in the sand and call people crybabies and racists for complaining about ARHA.
In reality, anybody who was a racist or overly sensitive wouldn't have chosen to move to this area to begin with. Most of us did because we value diversity and neighborhood character. But diversity doesn't equal dysfunction, trash, murders, profanity, animal abuse, and child neglect.
This is a real opportunity to make the neighborhood better for everyone. People like the previous poster don't add anything to the debate, besides unwarranted nastiness. We will all benefit from dispersed public housing.
"Did you not notice the giant public housing project across the street when you bought?"
I would ask the same question of the Mirant and Virginia Paving whiners....
Did no one buying a house in Old Town notice the power plant that was sitting on the river?
Did no one at Cameron Station notice that they were moving next to a cement plant?
See, frankly you argument doesnt work for me because when someone finally noticed in those places, they started whining and City "leaders" started spending millions of bucks to shut them down or gave them hearings.
Yet when people bring up the fact that overconcentrated public housing might be a problem (even though they fully tolerate it for the most part), what does the City do? Not spend more money to reduce the problem, not hold Resolution 830 hearings not fix the policy. They give them more cash and act like Adkins and Bland are simply not problems.
Thats my craw. And dont tstart by saying
Mirant allegedly pollutes, Virginia Paving allegedly pollutes. Yet without them, you would lose a business and you would lose power (literally)
What would I "lose" if Adkins and Bland were no longer in place?
Are f-bombs not pollution? Are trash piles not pollution? How many people have died from Mirant in the last 9 months? How many people have died in the 5-9 block radius east of the Metro?
I'm with you, poster above. And now the City has signed an MOU with ARHA "with the goal of improving the living environment for ARHA's residents."
And what about us? This is typical. There is nothing about improving the living environment for those of us who have suffered by having to live across from ARHA for years....
Now how hard would it have been for the MOU to say the goal is to improve living conditions for everyone???
"Mirant allegedly pollutes, Virginia Paving allegedly pollutes. Yet without them, you would lose a business and you would lose power (literally)"
Not true -- Mirant doesn't power Old Town. We get our power from somewhere else...
"Did you not notice the giant public housing project across the street when you bought?"
Of course I did... and we bought anyway after talking to our neighbors... both ARHA and non-ARHA alike... why? for a lot of reasons, not just because of the area but also financial. The other posters (who obviously live around the public housing like I do) stated it perfectly: the true dysfunction of ARHA, the true cost of living here, is not evident until you have to live with it on a daily basis over time. Nobody was murdered on the day I bought the house. There wasn't a prostitute turning a trick in the bushes at the exact moment that I signed the deed, and the black Escalade with Maryland plates... you know, the one that drives around blaring a certain song to indicate that drugs are available... didn't happen to drive by at that exact moment either. I may have even spent the entire day without hearing a gun shot, picking up a used condom from my front lawn, or sweeping hypodermic needles into a makeshift sharps container so that nobody happens to step on them.
Put it all together over the course of a couple years though, and its a different story.
Fine, I'll deal with it. Except now you throw on a short-sighted City council which screams about diversity while segregating the poor into a dysfunctional set up like Bland and Atkins, dooming them to a substandard life with no way out, and you might see where it starts to grind. Look, if Bland, etc was actually good for the residents, even at substantial cost to me, it would be a different story.
And don't get me started on affordable housing, since this was one of the few places that myself and my wife could afford to buy. You talk about affordable housing, and here we are, both with advanced degrees and good jobs in our field, and the best we could do was here... and yeah, 46% of my income goes to taxes (which fund the public housing among other things) and yet we have less rights than the public housing residents in the eyes of the city.
But you missed my point entirely... they are going to tear down Bland within a few months. Why is ARHA spending money it doesn't have to put in new doors which will then be torn down? Maybe Mayoral Bling and his free spending City council's decision to give ARHA an interest free loan (payable in 40 years or later if ARHA feels like it) has already gone to ARHA's head. Hey, can I get an interest free forever loan too?
"Not true -- Mirant doesn't power Old Town. We get our power from somewhere else..."
aha..just like Rosemont.
Where do you think that other power come froms? Some other community out there who in return for having a power plant provides Old Towners with power.
I.E like public housing in this City. In return for making people in Rosemont and Cameron Station feel good, Parker Gray gets public housing overconcentration.
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