Thursday, June 18, 2009
40 Jealous Whores / Around Town / Politics / The Economy May Town Center: Alarming Notes from the Planning Commission
Posted by Pete Kotz on Thu, Jun 18, 2009 at 5:10 AM
Comments (22)
Showing 1-22 of 22
Ace,
Your are the best at saying a lot of things in long sentences and relatively short article. The sad thing is a peron gets lost reading the same things repeatedly, maybe said a bit differently, but not mush.
This IS a very big project, noone said it would be easy. There will be issues to work out, but they can be done.
Reading your articles one would think of a very nervous helter skelter person who flies of the handle at the least little thing. That is not the impression a person gets when talking with you in person, though!
The 3rd bridge(?) has been in the works for yearssssssssssss. It will be reworked not to infringe upon the fowl and BB Park.
I need to get one point made. That scenic quaint 2 lane road does provide a peaceful view. BUT, for us who drive the thing every day it is a danger to our lives. It was planned to be brought up to codes yearsssss ago, also. It has no shoulders, many, many drive connections to homes and lanes and fields on blind curves. It is curvey and shaded, it freezes from any rain or sleet. OUR DAILY DANGER IS YOUR Sunday drive on a sunny Spring day when everything is coming to life. While we have had deaths and wrecks in our life times. Bike riders and walkers take put drivers in scarey decision making situations. Drivers will get the blame, but shouldn't!
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Will the Mays dump the money pit project? The more they want to build it, the more the Planning Department ramps up requirements.
It reminds me of those old B movie scenes of a car careening out of control eventually jumping a cliff.
http://dsc.discovery.com/videos/smash-lab-car-over-cliff.html
The idea that Bells Bend will remain "Leiper's Fork" like if the MTC isn't built is ridiculous. Instead we'll get 500 homes on 2 acre lots: the epitome of sprawl.
A dense mixed-use development in a center county =/= sprawl. Big companies building facilities south of Cool Springs and in Wilson County = sprawl. That's where development will go if MTC doesn't come to be.
Over the past decade residential growth in Davidson County has outpaced commercial development. Commercial development pays the bills folks. The more Nashville can get, the better financial ground the city will be on and the less it will be dependent upon property tax increases for new revenue.
“In their eagerness to have it all, the staff is leading the city down a path where it has nothing…” Pure projection of motive is that statement. The same may be said of the obstructionists; that in their eagerness to stop development in Bells Bend they are leading the city down a path to where it has nothing; except, at least Giantarra has a huge stake in the overall economic health of the city, whereas if we “go Detroit” and we have no Bells Bend bridge there stands a river between Butka’s paradise and the ethnic poverty of the Nations. Brother Martin has opined that the one bridge would be the wealthy folk’s way to control access from West Nashville; as in, keeping the poor minorities and homeless out. Again, I cry “projection," wondering if it’s not some of the current inhabitants of Paradise that don’t want that connectivity to West Nashville, so as to keep out brothah Riff and sistah Raff.
Having waded hip deep through the obstructionist’s hyperbole, I want to take this moment to unleash my own: my city is dying. It’s been bleeding to death for 40 years. Nashville is not a city unto itself but a part of a region that is over 1.5 million strong. Between 1980 and 2000, 3 out of 4 people added to the population were added outside of Nashville. When people settle outside Nashville their property taxes follow. When middle class and wealthy people move out of Nashville, so does their support of real estate prices.
There were 100,000 public school students in Nashville in the late 60’s, now public and private combined are just above 90,000. There should be north of 150,000 and 75 new schools to accommodate them. And that 90,000 number is considerably over-represented by the poor; looking at MNPS numbers it seems that over half take advantage of the free and reduced lunch program. The children, my fellow Nashvillians, are our future. The middle class families have long gone, and their parents and grandparents sit graying in West Meade, Green Hills and Creive Hall, Madison, etc.
Now, I’m not objecting to the presence poor people, but I am pointing out that in order to maintain a tax base you need a proportional mixture of poor, middle class and rich. If the upper percentile wage earners largely settle outside of Nashville and the bottom percentiles settle within, the tax burden heaped on the few who have means to pay will eventually chase them out as well.
The Detroit MSA has 4.4 million people despite the depopulation of the city of Detroit. The median income in the Detroit MSA is about equal to our Williamson County, despite the decades of declining fortunes of the city proper.
Nashville is moving towards being a Detroit. My city is dying.
“Now there are THREE bridges!” Yes. And thank you for that Mr. and Mrs. Opposition. You want nothing more than for the city to attach so many conditions to this project that their mere weight will be all that’s necessary to crush it – now you complain?
It reminds me of back when I lived in Lexington, Kentucky, where there are significant storm water issues because many tributaries were covered up and built over. Always, each development is objected to over the increased runoff that hard surfaces produce. Always, the development gets approved with the developer having to pay for all roads and infrastructure. Always, the approval happened because the property taxes generated from the new development were needed to fix infrastructure in the old parts of town. And always, both sides were left staring bitterly at each other across a muddy retention basin sitting between the development and the main road for everyone to drive by and see. Forever.
“Bridge number three is now slated for the western side, somewhere much closer to Bells Bend Park and the whooping crane refuge. Not that anyone has had a chance to look at this proposition.” I have. And it’s obvious that Old Hickory Boulevard can run alongside or through the utility property, completely missing the park.
Now, if we we’re really bitching in order to get a better deal (you know, productively bitching), then may I suggest the following: since we know (1)approval relies on two bridges up front, and we know (2)far more housing stock and developable land is available in Bellevue and Brentwood than off Briley, and we know (3) the state has already planned to connect the Bend with Bellevue, then perhaps it would be more constructive to lobby the state to accelerate the OHB bridge project to Bellevue to BECOME the second access to May Town. If BOTH bridges were six lanes wide, then the third bridge, the one to Annex Avenue, may not be necessary. Ever.
In fact, the $125 Million widening of I-40 may also be tabled permanently, because there would be very little May Town traffic added to I-40 between exits 199 and 205 since each of those exits would lead directly to May Town.
“And our main argument for why May Town is so suddenly urgently required is that everyone else has sprawl, so we want some too?’ Wow - I hate being so coarse, but that’s just phenomenally ignorant. Had you read those pages you cited, you would have seen three maps of the Nashville MSA 10-county region: 1965, now and the 2035 projection. Look very closely at that 2035 map, with all its added sprawl – REAL sprawl, the kind opponents of May Town don’t care about – eating up all of Williamson and most of Rutherford Counties.
Then, try to find the May Town site that obstructionists pretend is sprawl. Here’s a hint in locating it: It’s near Cockrill Bend, which you can make out but just barely. Immediately to the left in the white area is, of course, Bells Bend. Place a spot the size of just 1/20th of Bells Bend down in the lower part of the lobe, and that spot will represent paved-over May Town proper.
Then step back and compare that spot to EVERYTHING ELSE THAT WILL TURN BLACK ON THAT MAP BETWEEN NOW AND 2035! You want to stop the destruction of 550 acres of farmland and eliminate 35,000 job locations, but what of the hundreds of thousands of acres elsewhere that will be lost to that and other growth, according to our best attempt to prognosticate? Just because Giantarra brings up the point doesn't give you intelectual and ethical license to ignore it.
Here is real progressivism: seeing (1)the destruction that a continuation of current development patterns will have on green space, seeing (2)that only about 20 little May-Town-sized spots could accommodate that growth of 750,000 people projected to wipe out hundreds of thousands of acres, and seeing (3)that those 20 little nodes could be interconnected efficiently with high-speed dedicated public transit, it becomes clear that a May Town, if done correctly, will be the template for accommodating future growth in Davidson county as well as surrounding counties in lieu of destroying a half million acres of farmland to do so.
This is not about May Town, It's about the densification and rejuvination of the suburbs we have and about maintaining Nashville's tax base. It's about all future May Towns. It's about all the future fighting over development that we all know must come but we hope will go elsewhere, when in fact it WANTS to go to our favorite places because what we like future citizens will likely also cotton to. The obstructionists are not progressives on this issue, they are hyper-conservatives.
All right, folks, let's take about three steps back and ask ourselves a few very vital questions.
1. Do we really have to take seriously anybody who would even jokingly talk about how someone might oppose the Bell's Bend project because they want to keep out black people? David, have you ever even been to our side of town?
2. If you think Nashville is becoming Detroit, you clearly have never been to Detroit. You tell me where in Nashville you drive by block after block of empty lots. Or where in the downtown business district people are afraid to drive at night. Tell me which days of the year people are afraid to go outside because of the annual burning down of the city. Or where the people live inside ten foot high walls with barbed wire on top. Please. Let's just talk honestly here.
3. And talking honestly is the point. How can we, as a city, have an honest discussion about how to develop the city if the people who are doing the development are dishonest?
First they said "Oh, no, we only need one bridge" and now they're all "oh, yeah, well, we knew that we'd need at least two." First they said, "No, we will be able to maintain the rural two-lane nature of OHB" and now they're all "Oh, yeah, we are going to have to widen it." And even this whole stupid thing with the archaeological survey. They could have just said, "we haven't done one yet, but we know we need to." Instead, they said, "We have done an extensive survey" but they can't produce it.
And no matter what thing they say turns out to have been a lie, there are always folks ready to show up here and be all "Oh, yeah, well, we totally knew it was going to have to be this new way and that's totally fine. Let's just do all this so that we can reap the rewards they have promised."
Folks, their word means nothing.
They lied about the bridges. They lied about the necessity of road widening. They (as best I can tell) lied about the archaeological survey.
So, how can we have any kind of honest discussion if we can't get honesty from one of the principal players?
4. This idea that there has to be some kind of development there is false. The folks who own the land can do anything they want with it (as their ability to keep this project alive proves). They could recognize the value in the land as it is and work to preserve it.
They have the resources for that.
Aunt B.,
1. It wasn't a joke. Please stop looking for excuses to ignore opposing views.
2. The operative word is "becoming." Give it two more generations without a plan to attract jobs that have been and are still going out of county.
3. The obstructionists stand toe-to-toe with the developer when it comes to taking license with the truth. Chalk it up to different points of view, being either optomistic or pessimistic in the extreme. Because planning wants three bridges instead of one doesn't mean anyone lied. No on ever said, "Planning told us we only needed one bridge." Can't you just accept that, having to pay for each and every bridge, the developer will try to get by with as few as he deems possible? That's not lying, just as claiming May Town is sprawl is not a lie if you truly want to believe it. You see sprawl where I don't, they can't see archaeological sites where you do. We can have as many bridges to May Town as we want if we pay for a few more of them.
4. Or, they along with every other holder of over 10 acres of land could have a conservation zone crammed down their throats by Senator Henry. See, at one point opponents had the high road by claiming that May Town disrupted the neighborhood plan. Then, they repelled down the cliff to the low road by attempting to violate that same neighborhood plan through restricting development to 10 acres per home where 2-acre parcels had already been allowed for many years. That squeezed alot of Bells Bend residence between two forces; one coming to take away their countryside and the other to take their property rights and property values.
"So, how can we have any kind of honest discussion if we can't get honesty from one of the principal players?"
Good question. However, it's the planning commission that will set the conditions on development and insure zoning is in place so that development proceeds according to plan. It's the city who will hold the developer accountable to their promises.
Therefore, your real issue is that Metro can't be trusted to follow through with their charge. Well, I don't have much in disagreement to say about that! Someone in government will have to step up and defend their own record.
C'mon, David, 35,000 job relocations? I can't imagine you can say that with a straight face. Where are these jobs magically going to come from? Every new project always attaches some wildly inflated job estimates to it. And this one is just downright goofy.
Most of Tennessee's major job creation initiatives over the past decade have been through welfare. They're not choosing us because they like us. We're simply willing to offer more welfare than other states. And as we saw with the latest on the Spring Hill plant, our welfare coffers are empty. And since our politicians refuse to change the tax structure, we're going to have to rely on declining sales taxes to simply maintain what little government we have right now. I can't see our ability to throw around welfare returning for a long, long time -- if ever. The math is nakedly clear.
I'd be very much in favor of this project if it would really produce 35,000 jobs. And we have to be talking about "job relocations," as you put it. Not swiped from downtown or Williamson, which is little more than taking money off your sister's dresser. But when you throw around numbers like that -- with no details of who or how or where these will come from -- I get the distinct impression I'm being lied to. And if the developers are willing to lie about this, in such a bold and unimaginative way, how much else are they lying about?
Pete, Pete, Pete...
First, I said "job locations," i.e. where individual jobs would be located. Not job RELOCATIONS. Certainly not corporate relocations. Now will you take the time to consider the rest of my points?
Second, if you run the numbers presented on page 2 of the staff report recommending May Town approval, you'll find that Metro is projected to grow by 110,000 people in this period. If it takes magic to create 35,000 jobs in Nashville, then we'd better find us one hell of a magician because we'll need twice that in job growth. That doesn't even count the thousands of retirees in our post-war suburbs that will be replaced by one, if not two, employed souls carrying a mortgage.
Of course, because I wish to stem sprawl in other counties, I think it would be a good strategy to attract a disproportionate number of jobs to Nashville; say, enough to employ 200,000 more people. Not possible? Unthinkable? Well, again using math, the population growth projected by 2035 outside of Davidson County will be over 600,000 people. They will bring better than a 300,000 job growth to match their population growth. So, we're looking at over 350,000 jobs that will come with that growth (or we're toast).
Why can't we reverse the post-white-flight trend of growth in the Nashville area? No one questions this assumption. Why labor to turn subdivided land into farms in Nashville when many multiples in area of farms are being turned into suburbs in surrounding counties to house our surplus population? again, no one will answer that question.
Pete, it's clear that Butka's opinion reflects yours, which is why you posted her letter. It becoming clear why you let her speak for you; because you fear being swayed by facts. If you want to opine on the staff report then read it. Don't jump on me for being more informed than you because I actually read it, or for being more informed than Ms. Butka because my hatred for a project won't blind me to the past, current and future growth that will destroy hundreds of times the greenspace than May Town. The opponents made the destruction of green space the pillar of their argument, but the facts obliterate that argument, arguing instead, perhaps, for the sacrifice of 550 acres already zoned for development to save thousands of acres elsewhere.
I was wrong about one thing. The Nashville MSA is projected to grow by 900,000 people, according to the graph on page 2. The 750,000 figure will be Nashville's total projected poulation by 2035.
I guess I'm not willing to buy the population growth estimates, David. Having lived in the Rust Belt, where the population is in hasty retreat, I worry that Tennessee is showing all the signs that led to the Rust Belt's collapse. They're still in their infancy, but they're there, shining brightly: Insufficient tax revenues. Low rankings on all sorts of quality of life issues. Dramatically declining education. Inept and corrupt government. You could go on and on. And our biggest economic sell -- lots of corporate welfare and low wages -- is being usurped as well. I just heard on the radio the other day how one big company -- I forgot which -- is even outsourcing engineering jobs to India, where they'll work for half the wage. So I think it's hard to take today's precepts and run them through 2035 with any belief in accuracy.
As we both know, migration and growth is largely predicated on available work. So I guess I'm back to my central question: Where are the 35,000 jobs coming from? If they're new jobs, count me in. But if they're merely swiped from our neighbors, we're just spending a whole lot of extra money to move around what we already have -- while dramatically expanding our infrastructure costs. And we're just repeating the mistakes of the Rust Belt, fighting with our brothers over ever slimming scraps.
I think they mayor has it right that we should concentrate on infill development. The only reason we're even talking about May Town is not because it's a wonderful, fresh idea. It's because some very big people own the land, and they have the money and the clout to push for the development, whether it's good for us or not.
Pete, a little correction. All those signs of population retreat you listed have been the case in Nashville (and TN in general) since the civil war.
Haven't you ever heard the phrase, "Thank God for Mississippi"? We've ALWAYS been at the bottom of most rankings, just above Mississippi.
I really can't make up my mind about this issue - being one of those greying West Meaders, it affects me directly.
Lord knows, the last thing I want is for traffic west to become as congested as traffic east, north or south. I rather like my 15 minute commute, and considering what I pay in property taxes, I'd say I deserve to keep it.
However, the questions about the tax base are legitimate. I really wish there were a viable plan to bring more business and therefore more taxpayers to Davidson County. It may involve "welfare" as you call it, but it's just the way business is done in the modern world. You'd be hard pressed to find a major business development or relocation anywhere in the country that didn't involve tax breaks.
I'm pretty sure councilman Evans has made up her mind against May Town anyway. On the state level, Odom and Henry seem to be split. So, I don't know if my opinion counts for much anyway.
Pete,
I have complete respect for your opinion. Your points about rust belt deterioration and inept government are well taken. I don't disagree. I just wanted to point out that, according to the staff report that's currently under the microscope (information I've seen in other forms already), we've had significant growth over the most current four decades. Not unrelated, it was well publicized some months back that US population had grown 50% since some point in the 1960's; so, along with southward migration it's easy to see that our poulation has grown more than just proportionately.
As a side note, even populations in poor nations grow, and at an even faster rate than the wealthy. So, even if the nation goes Rwanda with it's trashed currency, we're still under the gun.
Given that growth, I have accepted that a May Town being is simply the name and place of a portion of growth that is to come, not in addition to and on top of that growth. Most opponents, I have concluded, have not seen the impact of that growth because it has largely been far removed from west Nashville. Now, it knocks on their front door, and they can't grasp the magnitude of it all. And the alternative to knowing where that growth will be is NOT knowing where that growth will be.
Wait until developers want to make May Towns out of existing suburban nodes like Green Hills or Belle Meade. And the city falls in line behind the developers because it wants the walkable neighborhoods with easy transit access and localized job availability. That's when you'll see the real fights. I'm afraid we'll need a little Robert Moses bootheel to get any Jane Jacobs inspired mixed-use neghborhoods in Nashville suburbs. But I believe they're coming.
I think you're right about the tax base, Slart. I think you're also right that everyone offers welfare. It's just that our big advantage has been that we were offering more welfare than anyone else, and given state budget constraints, and the inherent instability of our tax system, my bet is that our welfare days are over, at least as a major player.
So the question becomes how best to build the tax base with the greatest bang for our limited buck. And this project pretty much flies against all modern thought on urban planning. My guess is that it will be approved anyway. Tis one of the great rules of life: What the rich man wants, the rich man gets. Besides, we're not good at learning from the failures of other cities (see the convention center). But it is interesting to debate, is it not?
You could be right, David, especially about constant population growth. But I guess that having spent most of my life in the Rust Belt, you get a pretty firm read on the signs of impending decay. I think America likely will continue to grow, the question is where? The south's lost its native advantage of cheap labor to other countries; my guess is that will continue.
The armchair sociologist in me says the new growth will come in cities with homegrown economies which produce the kinds of jobs that can't largely be exported. Intellectual capital, as it were. And since we invest comparatively little in education -- the kind that builds invention in places like Boston or Seattle -- we're at a huge disadvantage.
Of course, I could be a complete moron about this. Weirdly enough, I've had occasion to be wrong. But having lived in places that are absolutely shedding population -- especially among the young and bright -- I'm seeing eerily similar signs in Tennessee right now. And just like in the Rust Belt, you see the highest political and economic castes completely oblivious to it. That's the really scary part.
David:
I know I'm just an humble--yes, ill-informed--citizen writing an occasional amateurish piece here, and I'm totally willing to admit that you are the most brilliant guy in the western hemisphere, and this string's about over, but I have to say: Someone from Detroit should have some understanding that well-meaning monstrously large developments don't save cities. Remember the Renaissance Center?
And if, as you aver, it's all going to be paved over anyway, so who cares--isn't that a great argument for saving a green spot in the middle? Should we build skyscrapers in Central Park to prevent sprawl in Westchester?
And, please, not to mention Jane Jacobs in the same breath with this project. An instant city--just add money--in a cowpasture has about as much to do with Jane Jacob's thoughts about workable urbanism as--as--well, words fail me here.
I personally am off to repair whatever appalling cognitive gaps I can reach in the course of a day.
Ta.
With a combined 60 plus years in public school classrooms my wife and I have seen and felt the pain trying to gain the favor of not the corporate world, but the box store relocation or propane gas distributor to build a tax base that would help local schools provide the necessary supplies to teach the rural poor of Tennessee. This is a thankless carreer that has suffered from the crunch of the dollar and its' scarcity. Nashville needs to develop increased tax revenue to provide for the improvement of our school system and city services that we have found to be stretched to historical limits. We can not continue to cut, fire, eliminate and have no hope for an end to the fall.
"And if, as you aver, it's all going to be paved over anyway, so who cares--isn't that a great argument for saving a green spot in the middle?"
Sure. We'll make it 800 acres in size and call it Bells Bend Park. I like it!
Brenda, saying we need to stop May Town to keep green space in the Bend when there's a huge park there already is exactly the kind of hyperbole, or perhaps "cognative gap," that precipitated my "my city is dying" post.
And I'm not from Detroit. I'm sorry if I gave you that impression.
Realistically here are the two choices as I see it. We can have May Town, with the promised conservation of over half the land. Or if this fails, the May's are going to want to salvage their project and what remains of their investment(as anyone would do) and turn the whole thing into a giant suburb, as existing zoning allows, with no park. Which would you prefer?
I do not know if May Town would actually work and corporations would relocate there, but I do know the best way to destroy Bell's Bend is to leave zoning as is. There will be a bridge built no matter what, and when it happens Bell's Bend will turn into a giant suburb unless something like this project happens.
Pete,
I believe you are letting your Rust Belt perceptions color your vision. You see the South about to go the way of the Midwest yes?
The main drivers of the South's growth remain intact. Lower wages(yes this is still true, look at median & average income data), lower taxes, and warmer climate.
The problems you bring up have always existed, and growth has occured in spite of them.
Further, on the idea of "welfare coffers" being depleted. You seem to be envisioning the process of relocation incorrectly as our government throwing money(of which we have a finite amount) at companies which relocate here. This is incorrect. They offer tax breaks, which, if they attract the new development, still result in a net profit to the local government over time. If they fail, and the companies choose elsewhere, then there is no money lost(or very little if you want to consider wining and dining costs of chambers of commerce)
The supply of these is essentially infinite, so no worries of our "welfare coffers" running out.
