Proposal for a Kinneys in Eastwood

• 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.

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?

While searching the web for what other cities are doing about vacant buildings , I came across a website simply titled “AMCBO Member Call Summary.” (AMCBO is the Association of Major City/County Building Officials.) It appears to be a summary of a meeting that took place in 2005. It’s worth a thorough read. Below I’ve pasted the ideas I found most appealing:

Several major approaches (are) being used to address what is not only a building department issue but also one that impacts police, fire, historic preservation and social services of a city.

…(S)ome cities register all structures that are vacant on a website (St. Paul, MN) with information on owner and value of the property as a way to potentially attract investors or developers who may be interested in acquiring the property for redevelopment.

Chattanooga, TN for example, tries to shame owners into making corrections by putting up 4’ X 8’ signs noting who owns the derelict building and will put ads in newspapers where the owner lives noting that they hold abandoned run down properties.

Milwaukee is considering a Board and Vacant Resolution. After 6 months, the city has authority to issue a directive to the owner giving him 30 days to make corrections and to take the boards off the abandoned structure.

In that city the owner can either get a rehab permit for their building or, if the building has been designated a historic structure, can get a mothball permit to seal and hold the building as is until it can be rehabilitated under historic preservation guidelines. If owners do not make the minimum repairs mandated by the city, then the city can set the property at fair market value.

Mr. Collins said that his city (Milwaukee) has experimented with SkunkShot (also being used in Los Angeles) as a chemical that is activated inside abandoned buildings and is so nauseous that squatters and others will not try to enter and inhabit the boarded up buildings. The website for this product is www.skunkshot.com.

Milwaukee has an ordinance – 25 illegal acts or 3 at a premises within a 30 day period and the building can be declared a chronic nuisance and go after a tax lien. 81% of the owners comply after the first such letter from the city. Get 100% compliance with the city’s tax bill.

Ron Smith from St. Louis noted that abandoned and vacant buildings are a problem in his city as well. He said the city has a new tool – legislation that establishes a nuisance ordinance regarding vacant and abandoned buildings.

The first part of the ordinance involves “behavioral nuisances.” This applies to buildings that house (legally or illegally) people whose behavior generates numerous police calls. The Mayor is having the City Council look at ways of getting the building into the hands of a different owner, one who will fix the building up.

Secondly, the city can issue a fine and after 6 months or more violations the property can be put under notice for sale by the city.

St. Louis follows a program similar to Milwaukee for nuisance buildings. City issues a cease and desist letter and then takes penalties to next level with the city attorney stepping in to get the property to someone else.

St. Louis has 15 designated historic districts in the city. Consideration is being given to put demolitions under the control of a special preservation board.

Chicago has the legal authority to pursue owners who live out of state.

Florencio Pena from San Antonio noted that because of the way his authority is set up his department is not directly involved. A dangerous buildings board handles abandoned and vacant buildings. The city runs an incentive program to get new owners for buildings whose owners can’t or won’t fix them up to code.

Chicago has an exterior facade ordinance and covers porches as well. The city has 178 inspectors for over 1,000,000 buildings.

The city goes after out-of-state owners and works closely with the Department of Housing and Landmarks to encourage housing conversions in once vacant properties. Attached housing is not a problem in Chicago.

The city has day-to-day fines that can get upwards of $300,000 to $500,000 to shift over the property to those who are willing to develop. Chicago has 9 inspectors in its vacant buildings and demolition program. The city has a very tenacious department of revenues that garnishes revenues.

Milwaukee: On vacant buildings in an historic district, our code allows the city to make safety repairs and put those costs on the owner’s taxes.

They didn’t tear it down. They kept it walkable, despite the pressures of all that oh-so-annoying traffic. They “allowed” old people to grow old right there in the village, unlike Fayetteville, which couldn’t have any of that. There’s a senior center and a senior home in the heart of the village of Manlius. And now they’ve somehow found a developer stupid enough to build according to the village’s stupid plans. Who do they think they are? Another Skaneateles? You know which one I mean, the town so stupid it figured out how to get people to drive for 40 minutes just to take a walk in it.

Sorry, I get worked up. This article in today’s Post-Standard upsets me. The things they say! Look at this (bolding mine):

“In 2008, the village adopted its comprehensive Vision Manlius plan for development. The plan is a set of guidelines for fostering a pedestrian-friendly village with a rural feel, vibrant downtown business core, mixed residential and commercial development, plus parks and natural areas.”

and

“A key, said Dougherty, was to create a project that would encourage foot traffic through it and into the rest of the village. “It is nearly the inverse of how a typical developer would approach this prime site,” said Dougherty.”

and

“Parking would be in the rear and would accommodate more than 350 cars. A new road, called Village Road, would line up with Manlius Mart. It would be closed off to vehicular traffic in the summer for pedestrian flow and to allow the restaurants to open up for outdoor, patio seating.”

So what if traffic doesn’t flow rapidly through Manlius? It doesn’t do that in any town worth living in. That’s because people find it so rewarding to live there, they put up with the inconvenience of having to take just one aspect of their lives a little more slowly (examples: Newport, Boston, all of Europe).  If traffic discourages one more developer from turning one more of Pompey’s farmer fields into a mass of McMansions, all the better for Manlius.

Let’s see, then. Eastwood has had its own visionary overlay district guidelines for eight years. It has had development on James Street during that time, and most of it pretty good. It has suffered from a planning commission still subject to pressure from a mayor who has publicly come out against the guidelines. It is mired in a system that that allows developers to toy with (read: divide and try to conquer) the property-tax-paying residents. It is facing the same problems Manlius faces. But oh, what a difference when you have plans in place that will be enforced. Look at the kind of developer you get: one who will do the inverse of what has brought Eastwood to the brink, Butternut to the pit and Salina-Ballantyne over the edge.

Makes it kinda tempting to consider moving back home.

Sean said in 2005:

Sitting in the car Thursday, watching as men and women flowed in and out of the Dinosaur, it struck me that people go there because it offers something unique – and because it embraces, rather than fears, authentic city ambiance. The funny thing is, if the Dinosaur went by the Walgreens rules (referring to Walgreens “need” for suburban, big-box style development – ed.) , a true Syracuse phenomenon would probably dry up and close its doors.

Sean reminds us that many of our pre-conceived notions of what makes a business work just fall apart in the face of this reality: a restaurant putting out top-notch food that caters to a serious diversity of people can be a destination. It doesn’t need to demolish a building to be successful. It doesn’t need acres of blacktop in front of it. It doesn’t need to alter the streetscape. It fits right in with the city and people come from all over to be there. And they aren’t afraid, and they don’t complain about having to walk a few blocks from their parking spot to get there. (They gotta do something to burn off the calories they’re about to eat!) This is what a real city is about.

But, sadly, Mayor Driscoll is singing the old last-century tune that has ruined much of Syracuse (and the fabric of countless cities across the country): demolish, demolish, demolish. Pave paradise, put up another drug store, and…  you won’t know what city you’re in any more. And you certainly won’t have economic development, because your money will be siphoned off to the coffers of a big corporation in another state.

We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again:

• Mayor Driscoll has been talking out of both sides of his mouth.
• There IS a developer who can take the existing Wittigs Ice Cream / Steak & Sundae building and turn it into something great.
• And the Dinosaur Barbecue is just the type of destination we can have in Eastwood if we’ll just stick to our standards.

How difficult is that?

Keep up the good work Sean! We need you!