BIKE: The downtown Trolley vs. "Other" Election)

[Mike Dahmus]

Richard Ryan wrote:

> where neighbors have used historic concerns
> as a pretext for opposition to proposed projects.
>  
> Jeb:
>  
> Speaking as a member of the OWANA neighborhood, I can assure you, our 
> concern for saving historic buildings is genuine.  Many of us 
> volunteered to do survey work and research so that we could get our 
> neighborhood listed on the National Register of Historic Places.  We 
> experience pain and grief everytime we lose a historic resourse in our 
> neighborhood.
>  
> Opposition to proposed projects is a seperate issue. Unfortunately, 
> many of the proposed development projects are also associated with the 
> demolition of a historic structure.  If the developers would stay away 
> from historic structures, they would find much less opposition.
>  
> Yours in preservation,  Dick Ryan
>
I lived in OWANA from 1997 to 2003 and still own a home there.

Dick, the largest opposition currently spearheaded by OWANA to any 
project of any kind is for the office towers at 6th and Lamar, which 
will replace some really cruddy strip retail, surface parking, and small 
office buildings. No historic structures of any kind are in any danger 
whatsoever from this project.

I'm sorry, but I think it's disingenuous to make the claim that "If the 
developers would stay away from historic structures, they would find 
much less opposition.". Some of the disagreement expressed with me on 
the OWANA mailing list centered around "we can't build this building 
'across the street' from our historic houses" (no, none of these people 
live on the west side of Lamar).

The same types of ridiculous (and in many cases maliciously false) 
claims were made by my current neighborhood (NUNA) against the Villas on 
Guadalupe, and later against me when I dared criticize the neighborhood 
plan for NUNA which called for essentially a net REDUCTION in density 
even on heavy transit corridors like Duval and Speedway. (And yes, 
there's plenty of NON-historic development on both streets which if 
demolished and replaced with 3 or 4-story street-friendly apartment 
buildings would VASTLY improve the neigborhood).

There's a pattern here that's worth noting - in fact, it is readily 
apparent that center-city neighborhoods will use whatever lever they 
think most effective to fight development they don't like, and in fact, 
the historic lever has been the number one solution so far.

I'm a life member of the Sierra Club, and I voted against Margot Clarke. 
Enough is enough - neighborhoods have way too much power in this city to 
stop projects that are critically necessary to reverse the metastisizing 
cancer of suburban sprawl.

- MD