Wednesday, June 24, 2009
40 Jealous Whores / Around Town / Politics / The Economy Envisioning an Alternative to the May Town Center
Posted by Pete Kotz on Wed, Jun 24, 2009 at 5:25 AM
Comments (6)
Showing 1-6 of 6
Brenda,
A couple of serious, heartfelt questions here. First, why can't the third vision exist between Beaman and Bells Bend Parks, just as you described it, WITHOUT including the May/Zeitlin property on the east side of OHB? Second, what can either the city or the developer do to calm fears that rural OHB becomes another Charlotte Pike due to serial zoning changes, aside from the offer to purchase development rights along OHB?
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I am accepting your statement that this is a sincere question.
There is a natural boundary to protect the Bells Bend area. It is called the Cumberland River. Zoning is AR2, and we have a Detailed Design Plan passed unanimously by the Commission last year.
Grant the gigantic and unprecedented zone change from least dense to instant city to the Mays-- and who is going to tell the next guy up the road that rich people (who don't live here and have never been to a single community meeting) can have zoning changed to make a bundle, but that he can't? Maytown will make this a commercial corridor.
There is nothing they can do to calm our fears about Old Hickory Boulevard, because our fears are firmly based in reality, experience, and human nature. Trying to fix this by buying easements is bizarrely at odds with the concept of conservation easements, which require persuading both a landowner and a conservation organization that there is something to actually conserve. Once zoning for Maytown is in place, thirty years worth of construction trucks will be rolling along, and other zoning changes will have to be granted, and there will be nothing to conserve. Wishful thinking can't counteract bad policy.
Who would monitor all those conditions the department has placed? A planning department who would not even commission a feasibility study before rubber-stamping the largest development ever proposed in Tennessee? We don't even know who the developers would be--not Tony, who is a hired flack to get the Zoning changed, nor the Mays, who, sweet though they may be, haven't built much other than their own houses.
The planning staff itself has violated its own promises to stay within the footprint when it proposed a third bridge. If they can't even control themselves, how can they control an aggressive developer?
This is why it's called sprawl--once you open the doors, it can't be stopped.
A nod to the "they can do whatever they want with their property" crowd: yes, they can, as long as it is compliant with the AR2 zoning they bought.
Believe me, there is more to say, but I hope you get a flavor of the deeply schizophrenic nature of this proposal. And Prozac ain't gonna help--this calls for behavioral therapy: Just say no.
Ace,
I sure get a kick out of calling you that. It seems so natural, your name not me calling you that.
I want to just write some facts and not prose.
-200,000 cars using OHB? Scenic road?
-3rd vision with infrastructure costs? How?
-RANRA ALL OVER AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Why?
-4,000 acres you do not own.
-Facts not Fantasy so we can see what is real, please?
-Farmers market--down the road there is another farmers market, 4 miles away, isn't this what you would say is wrong with MTC, drawing business away from existing business.
-the picture-looks like a commercail advertisement(cut flower business), like the CSA is a commercial business for someone, isn't it?
-what is it you have against TSU? You down graded them in your story, again?
Can you guess where I copied this from?
"Community plans, DDPs, developed through a participatory process that involves a myriad stakeholders-residents, property owners,business owners, developers, institution representatives, and elected officials."
**** First pages of the 'Scottsboro/Bells' Bend Detailed Design Plan'.
Notice it does say that developers and institutions may be stakeholders. Meaning, that when this was written it was acccepted that change could happen to the original plans for this neighborhood and if you will research the next paragraphs you will find that the alternative to existing geographic landscape is building of homes!
All stipulations agreed to by stakeholders at the beginning of the process. Wordage could have been changed or challenged, this was not.
"...who is going to tell the next guy up the road that rich people (who don't live here and have never been to a single community meeting) can have zoning changed to make a bundle, but that he can't?"
If the bridges and infrastructure improvements enjoyed by May Town were to be taxpayer provided, I'd have to agree with you. However, since the developer is paying for those items, it's reasonable that the city take the position of rejecting zoning requests poised to profit off new modes of connectivity those applicants did not pay for, as if that infrastructure never existed.
Perhaps, as a prerequisite to building the bridges, the city should require those seeking a zone change along OHB, taking advantage of the new bridges, pay a proportionate amount of the bridges' cost back to the Mays. This could be in the form of a special remediation levy on the applicants and an equal tax break for the Mays. Such a levy would serve to discourage zoning requests above the AR2 designation, and be revenue neutral.
"Maytown will make this a commercial corridor."
That's the conventional, but unchallenged wisdom. Have a look at Cool Springs. Franklin Road to the west and Wilson Pike to the east still retain their rural character. Moores Lane, to the east of CS, immediately reverts back to the pre-Cool Springs housing stock.
There are no commercial corridors in and out of Cool Springs. There are, however, residential buffers.
That may be because, unlike the strip malls and car dealerships strung like beads along Nashville's arteries, Cool Springs was laid out as one big destination rather than a series of smaller spots strung along for miles on end.
Don't you think the convenience of crossing over the river from May Town to the WalMart and Targets in West Nashville outweighs any advantages of driving north on windey OHB towards Scottsville, nearly five miles away? More likely, even residents of Tidwell Hollow and those to their south will gravitate towards West Nashville to shop, to the detrement of growth in Scottsboro. And from Scottsboro, West Nashville will still be closer by Ashland City Highway than down Old Hickory Boulevard.
