Proposal for a Kinneys in Eastwood

Well, in today’s news video we first see the building that apparently will go up (looks like a Microtel) and then they showed the PACNY proposed site plan. Would that the lovely yellow building with the mansard roof could be our Ronald McDonald House! But no, only the first version (below) is what we’ll get.

Screenshots from the video (scroll down to “Groundbreaking for new Ronald McDonald House 6-9-11″):

The building that will go up

The building we could have had... but won't

• We will build what we want, where we want it, despite your overlay district guidelines.
• We will sell pornographic products within mere feet of a church, a school, and residences.
• We will take you (and your tax dollars) to court if you try to prevent us from violating your city codes.
• We will win in court.
• There is nothing you can do.

There was virtually no positive response to the presentation and many people were quite unhappy with what they saw. Their plan violates the overlay district zoning standards as well as city regulations that prevent the sale of adult materials within 1000 feet of a church, school, or residential area.

Also, the building would be literally within a few feet of the James Street Methodist Church, so close that the church would not be able to properly care for its building because they wouldn’t be able to get equipment in.

Several people pressed them on the issue of the sale of adult materials. They would not come up with a definitive answer. We’ve all seen presentations like this before, and we know how much of it is truth and how much of it is spin or simply avoiding answering… which means they don’t want to say what they know we’ll object to.

I asked them how we could be assured that we would not end up in the same situation as Auburn, which had to go to court over the sale of such materials. They, too, have regulations against it. The response: “Auburn lost.” and “We always win in court because it’s a small portion of the product that we sell.”

But that doesn’t reassure us at all, does it?  While their pornographic material may represent a small percentage of the videos in the store, it could mean a huge percentage of the sales. We see no other way this outmoded business model can be as successful as they claim.

We in Eastwood are just so accustomed to this kind of arrogance on the part of a developer who waltzes in with a plan that clearly demonstrates no knowledge of or interest in our community standards. It’s almost laughable – did they not do their homework and, as someone in the meeting pointed out, did they not realize that Eastwood has already stood up to another developer for five years in order to keep our community pedestrian-friendly and safe for our kids?

This message is for “Family” Video: if you insist on moving ahead with the abysmal plan you brought to our community Monday night, you are in for a rough ride. Your plan has done for Eastwood what nothing in the past has accomplished: united it. And that is the feedback from the community that you can bring back to headquarters.

• All three proposed designs violate the James Street Overlay District Zoning Standards in many ways.
• Video stores are unsustainable businesses unless they are selling adult videos – which “Family” Video does.

Not one of over a dozen comments in the email group of over 100 members was in favor of having this business in Eastwood. This community has spent years fighting bad design – and winning – so we’re not about to turn back the clock and allow suburban-style development in our urban community. That would cause all our property values to drop and would be a slap in the face of the James Street business owners who develop, successfully, following the guidelines.

Several commenters noted that selling videos is an outmoded business model and figured that it’s the sale of pornographic videos that keeps these businesses going. The last thing Syracuse needs is to end up in court over the issue of adult videos like Auburn is right now. The Post-Standard quotes Auburn City Manager as saying, “The fact that they advertise it as a family store and then have something that really is degrading for our whole community — I think some changes will have to be made…”

Note: the Adult Use Regulations for the City of Syracuse prohibit Adult Uses within 1000 feet of any residential dwellings, districts, churches or schools.

Common Councilor Kathleen Joy wrote to the email group the following (reprinted with permission):

I met with a representative of the “Family” video Monday. They fully intend on presenting at TNT on 3/22. I told him that I could not personally support this project as proposed because it does not  comply even with the spirit of our design guidelines &  I don’t like the idea of an X rated section (not disputed by him, by the way), they have no contract with the owner and have not vetted this project through any pre-development meeting.
He tells me that if the sense of the neighborhood is that it’s not wanted, then they won’t pursue it.

We were alerted to the problems with “Family” Video by PACNY‘s Mike Stanton, who sent the following, reprinted with permission (bolding mine):

Quote of the day: “Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.” Edward Abbey (The Journey Home, 1977).

Here we go again.

1) Family Video, a national video store chain with 550 stores nationwide, says it will build a $1 million store in Eastwood, but only if they can build a suburban style store with the parking lot on the corner and the entrance facing the parking lot rather than the sidewalk. Eastwood has an overlay district intended to promote walkability and pedestrian-friendly design. The video store would be built at the site of the former Steak & Sundae restaurant on James Street, which has been vacant and deteriorating for years. Mike Muraco, a Syracuse native who lives in Miami Beach, Fla., said “It’s a useless piece of property, unless they can bend a little.”

2) The city of Auburn took Family Video to court in 2008 because it rented X-rated adult videos. “The (store name) is a trap for families,” City Manager Mark Palesh said. “My family’s never going to go there again.” The city sought a court order to shut down the store’s sex video trade, saying it violates the city’s 1998 zoning ordinance banning sexually oriented businesses from operating within 500 feet of any area zoned residential. Family Video fought the city’s order in court.

3) A Buffalo News article says municipal officials in Western New York utter the name “Family Video” sarcastically these days. In the Town of Tonawanda, officials thought they nipped a potential problem in the bud when Family Video presented plans for a store in 2005. Not only was the Colvin Boulevard site not zoned for adult uses, town officials were assured that X-rated fare wouldn’t be offered there. And, for a while, it wasn’t. But recent complaints about adult videos in a back room — and Family Video’s alleged refusal to remove them — prompted the town to seek a court injunction barring their rental or sale. “The whole thing was, they misled us,” Councilman John A. Bargnesi Jr. said last week, when he announced the court case had been initiated.

The “Family” Video representative wrote the following and sent the site plans to the developer, who sent them to me for blogging so the community can weigh in on the issue. The developer, Stephen Skinner, has indicated that he is solidly pro-guidelines and neutral on “Family” Video.

Attached are three site plans for consideration. The 7/14/08 model would be our preferred site plan, with the building in the rear corner of the lot. We are willing to consider a compromise that would turn the building 90 degrees and have the right side of the building adjacent to the sidewalk on James St. This is a significant change from our preferred prototype. We did this in Rome, but only after the City of Rome offered a significant amount of financial contribution toward the facade improvement.

Let’s hope we can get the same support here.

"Family" Video's preferred plan (7-14-08)

Compromise 1

Compromise 2

What’s wrong with these pictures?

Your comments, please.

I’ll be writing tomorrow with more information on what kind of company “Family” Video is and how it actually makes money in a world where video is fast giving way to online and cable sources.

If we must have a gas station (before it’s converted to an electricity dispensing station or fuel cell store), then let’s be sure we’re looking at all the options.

In this article, Urban Blight: It’s a Gas!, you’ll see quite a variety of gas stations, all of which have been built and which make economic sense to someone.  Which might make sense for our neighborhood now, in 2009?

What about the design of the whole site, if we assume a gas station must go in at this corner? It could be any of those in the above article, or it could be something like the lower picture you see here:

I see the Real Food Co-op and an ice cream parlor on the lower floor, luxury apartments on the second floor and a roof garden on the top. What do you see?

My mind boggles at the people who park on the sidewalks right in front of a certain gym, across the street from senior housing where wheelchair users live. This is the route the wheelchair-bound would take to get to the community center if there weren’t cars on it. Where is the logic in parking so close you don’t have to walk half a block to get to the treadmill??

Sig Snyder sent me this from the  Transportation For America website:

If a jumbo jet filled with 400 passengers dropped from the sky every month, you can bet it would get serious federal attention. Well, that’s about how many pedestrians are killed on U.S. streets every month – but until now it hasn’t gotten nearly the attention it deserves.

The good news is that we can fight the problem at the root with strong leadership and more resources from the White House for “Complete Streets” – policies that will ensure that streets are designed with all road users in mind, not just motorists.

CLICK HERE to ask U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood to make safer streets a priority!

And let’s not forget to keep working on ways to keep our sidewalks in good repair summer or winter.