Look Out Carytown

To quote singer Bob Dylan- “For the times they are a-changin’.”  And they appear to be changing quite dramatically for Richmond’s Carytown area. 

Richmond City Council voted 9-0 at their March 28^th meeting to approve a special use permit for a new retail development in Carytown Place on North Nansemond Street.  The council also voted 6-3 to approve a city master plan amendment for the area.  And many in the community are not pleased with the council’s decision.

The controversial master plan amendment called for certain properties along Floyd Avenue, Ellwood Avenue, North Thompson Street and North Nansemond Street to have their designation in the city’s master plan “land use plan” changed from “transitional office” to “community commercial”.

Councilman Bruce Tyler, whose 1st District includes the site in question, began the council discussion at the Monday meeting by pointing out that “this is not a business decision, this is a land use decision.”

Tyler explained that, “The Commonwealth of Virginia provides us with certain rights as a city, and one of those rights is to delegate land issues and land use issues to the city.” 

He said the commonwealth does not delegate to the City of Richmond the right to decide what business goes in a building and which one does not.  “If I have two competing businesses, well it’s not my place to say this one can come in and this one can’t,” Tyler said. 

He also explained that SUP’s have to be decided on according to the criteria set forth by the code in the city’s master plan. “And the criteria’s very clear – it cannot increase congestions, in cannot encroach on other people’s property, it cannot be overdeveloped [to name a few],” Tyler said.  “That’s critical.”

Tyler is for the development, but against changing the master plan to cater to the developer.

            “I just felt it was inappropriate to do it that way,” he said, referring to the changing of the master plan so that this one project could be approved.  “If you don’t do spot zoning, you shouldn’t be able to do spot master planning.”

Zoe Anne Green, a representative from the Museum District Association’s Board of Directors, agrees.  She said the association spent 8 months working with the developer on the plans for this project and “certainly not everyone’s happy, but we feel like we did the best thing for the neighborhood with that property.”

Green said the MDA, which represents the area west of the Boulevard, feels like the planned development is a really good use for a vacant property that is not really suitable for office space.  Green added, “The parking lot is oriented towards Thompson, not Nansemond, so we believe it’s not going to have a lot of impact on the residents on Ellwood and Floyd.”

The MDA voted in November to oppose the SUP, but the developer made several changes and the association then voted to support the altered plans.

However, the association does not feel like the city administration did the right thing by introducing the master plan amendment.  “We would’ve preferred that council voted against that,” Green said, adding, “It’s more on the way it was done than what it was.” 

She said the association feels that there wasn’t enough notice given about the amendment and there wasn’t enough opportunity for public input.  “But we feel they did the right thing on the SUP.”

Hunter Jamerson, attorney at Macaulay and Burtch and representative of Don’t Big Box Carytown, claimed that these plans would violate Virginia Code Section 15.2.22.1.

"Long story short, that code section governs the relationship between localities and the state with regards to transportation planning,” Jamerson explained, adding, “It says that any time [the city is] rezoning an area, and the SUP is a form of rezoning, that is within 3000 ft. of a state controlled highway and it creates a substantial impact on state controlled highway transportation, then you have to report to the Virginia Department Of Transportation (VDOT) with regard to what [the city’s] site plan is so that [VDOT] can review it and determine whether any changes need to be made.”

 In this case, the Carytown Place development is about 1500 ft. away from Interstate 195. If the new development generates more than 250 vehicle trips per day, then a site plan must be given to VDOT.

"It's going to generate traffic in excess of the reporting requirements, so that requires VDOT to study it.”

Jamerson explained that VDOT has a system similar to assigning letter grades to these projects “like A-F and my bet is...these are C level intersections”.  So while the project would not fail, it would require some changes to the existing traffic pattern in order to improve the situation. 

“And those would be things like removing street parking on Ellwood Avenue and that block in order to alleviate the strain, changing some of the one way patterns or signage and little things that,” Jamerson said.

Jamerson wrote a letter to the city council members explaining all of these details, but claims no such report or study has been made.

Supporters and opponents had packed council’s chamber at the March 28^th meeting, offering conflicting viewpoints.  A prominent voice amongst those in opposition was the group Don’t Big Box Carytown.

Jamerson said Don’t Big Box Carytown opposed the project in principle on the basis that this was not an appropriate development for the neighborhood.  “I think our basis for [that belief] is [the council] had to amend the city’s master plan to even justify this kind of use in this neighborhood,” Jamerson said. 

He added, “We would have preferred to see this kind of development go on the Boulevard or Broad and Belvidere; somewhere where there’s an appropriate site for these kinds of development.”

As Jamerson put it, “This wasn’t just a ‘not in our backyard’ campaign.” 

Jamerson said the group’s main point was that something along the lines of a mix-use, small retail housing or multi-family housing, like apartments or condos, would have been a much better fit, and “probably would have generated a better product for the local, existing retail.”

“If you build more apartments you create more retail space for the merchants you already have there,” Jamerson explained.  “Instead, they’ve added another grocery store to compete with the existing three.”

Hiatus

Apologies for the long break inbetween posts, but I've been swamped with work and other madness.

But rest assured, many posts to come soon.

Monroe Park Situation - in case you've been living under a rock...

Monroe Park, located in the middle of Virginia Commonwealth University’s Monroe Park Campus, was established in 1851 at its current address of 620 W. Main St.  Since then, not much has been updated or renovated in the park, if anything at all.

Richmond City Councilman Charles Samuels oversees the city’s 2^nd District, which happens to include Monroe Park, and became involved with the project when he was elected to Richmond City Council in 2008 and took office in 2009.

“There have been plans throughout the years, I mean decades, to improve, fix up and renovate Monroe Park,” Samuels said.  “The most recent one occurred about nine years ago.”

The Monroe Park Advisory Council was appointed by the members of City Council and has been in charge of developing the renovation plans for the park.  The group developed the Monroe Park Master Plan.

“The original objective was… they were looking at paving a significant portion of the park and turning it into a parking lot,” Samuels explained.  “There was a question about whether or not that was the best use for the park and whether or not there should be something else done instead of that.”

“They decided to look at what the role of the park should be… in the community and what would make good sense to do with the park.”

The full Monroe Park Master Plan is 130 pages long and includes objectives like replacing all the utilities, removing vegetation and introducing entertainment elements such as sculptures, a farmer’s market, a stage, a carousel, a café and an ice cream cart.

“[The project] has an opportunity to make both the pathways and the restrooms [Environmental Protection Agency] compliant and handicap accessible, which could be a really big deal,” Samuels said. 

“A lot of the community is on board with [the project],” Samuels said.  He said the plans are drawn up and now “it’s a matter of putting it out to bid, getting a request for proposals, and getting that kind of stuff taken care of so that we can begin.”

However, some Richmonders see more problems with the Monroe Park Master Plan than with the park’s current condition.

Peggy Sterling is an advocate with the Monroe Park Campaign, a group dedicated to keeping the park open during the renovations.  Sterling has been with the group since attending a meeting in November that was hosted by Councilman Samuels.

“Councilman Samuels organized a meeting for those of us who had concerns about the park closing,” Sterling said.  “Basically the meeting was, in his words, to discuss what would happen when the park closed.”

“At the meeting…there was no consensus that we wanted the park to close,” explained Sterling, adding, “At the end of the meeting, Councilman Samuels got up and said the meeting was a success and that we would all go to the Conrad Center when the park closed.”

Sterling said newspapers reported this conclusion from the meeting, but that it was inaccurate.  “I’m not saying Councilman Samuels is a liar, but he was not being entirely truthful about the results of that meeting.”

The Conrad Center, located at 1400 Oliver Hill Way, provides a regular program where a hot breakfast and dinner are served five days a week to over 300 people in need.

But Sterling says the Conrad Center is an inadequate replacement for Monroe Park.

“Some people are not going to be able to get services,” she said.  “Certainly the Conrad Center provides services, but the Conrad Center is not very accessible to someone who does not have the ability to obtain transportation.  The walk up that hill is almost impossible for someone who is handicapped and so to get to the Conrad Center for anything is extremely difficult.”

However, free transportation is being set up in the form of a shuttle for people who are unable to transport themselves to the Conrad Center.

Melba Gibbs, executive director for Freedom House, the association that runs the Conrad Center program, said, “This shuttle is a pilot program that we are conducting for a 6 month period.”

The shuttle will be used to transport people to and from the Conrad Center to medical and social service appointments first, then for the meals program. “We will not start the shuttle until March 15th so I have no way of knowing what the results will be,” Gibbs said.

But Sterling said it’s not just the meals that are the issues.  “Food Not Bombs brings in … potatoes, tomatoes, basically groceries, and taxes them out and people take them home as groceries for the week.  I don’t believe that the Conrad Center does any such thing,” said Sterling, although she admitted that there are churches in the area that offer similar services.

Food Not Bombs, a group that serves a meal in Monroe Park every Sunday at 4 p.m., is an organization that has been vocal in their opposition to the closing of the park.

A representative from Food Not Bombs who said his name was Donnie (and that he “doesn’t use a last name”) explained that the organization has an issue with more than just the closing of the park.  

“Food Not Bombs isn’t really a charity organization, and what we do is very much political, and any attack on people within a society is an attack on everybody in that society,” he said.

Samuels is aware of the concerns of this and other organizations. “I try to take into account everyone’s feelings and positions on this.  The feeding services are, fortunately, services that can occur almost anywhere,” he said.

“While I feel for them that there is potential that they won’t be able to feed where they have been doing it in the past, [the plan] doesn’t prohibit them from continuing to do so.  Just for a series of time they’ll have to do it somewhere else.”

But Donnie explained, “It’s not an issue of services.  It’s an issue of this is an attack on the poor and it’s part of the continued process of gentrification that VCU and the city have been involved in in that neighborhood for years and years and years.”

The organization’s frustrations go beyond on their feelings on the gentrification issue.

Donnie claims that the Monroe Park Advisory Council removed the Master Plan from their website after Food Not Bombs came to one of their meetings and “were pointing out things from the plan that were questionably legal, but definitely oppressive and terrible.” 

He said the council also removed most of the contact information for its members after that meeting and now claim that they don’t exist.

Food Not Bombs is also frustrated because the city is not being forthcoming with information.  “There have been [Freedom of Information Act] requests from people involved in the [Monroe Park Campaign] that have gone nowhere, that have been completely ignored, or we’ve been told that the documents we’re requesting don’t exist,” Donnie said.

Food Not Bombs has made a list of how its organization wants the park to be handled, including keeping at least 25 percent of the park open at all times during renovations (the list can be viewed online at(http://fanofthefan.com/2010/10/more-on-the-monroe-park-renovation/).

But Samuels doesn’t see how planners can meet the demands of the organization.  “They made a list of demands and that’s certainly within their purview to make them, but when people make non-negotiable demands it’s very difficult to find common ground to compromise,” he said.

And non-negotiable is right:  in a statement posted on The Wingnut Anarchist Collective, a blog group closely affiliated with Food Not Bombs, and other publications, Mo Karn released a statement that begins with, “Food Not Bombs will resist all attempts to shut the entire park down for any amount of time” (http://wingnutrva.org/2010/11/01/article-on-monroe-park-in-todays-richmond-times-dispatch/).  

However, Samuel states that all underground utilities will be dug up for the renovation and the park must be entirely closed for public safety reasons.

“If I tell you, you absolutely positively have to do something and it’s not something that you feel you can reasonably do, how do you negotiate with me if I don’t bend?  If I’m not willing to work with you to find the solution, how do you resolve that?”

But Donnie explained that the members of Food Not Bombs are not interested in compromising on this issue.

“Under no circumstances will the park be closed.”

Food Not Bombs and activists like Sterling have other concerns and issues with the proposed plans for the park.

Donnie said that the renovation plan is a “massive waste of funds” and the proposed maintenance budget for Monroe Park is well over any other park in the city.  He also said a private non-profit organization would be put in charge of managing the park, with the director receiving “a whopping salary, well over $100,000.”

Another concern is where the homeless people who currently frequent the park go.  Sterling argues that if the homeless were to move into parks in The Fan area of the city, the police would remove them “because those parks are used by Fan area residents, have swings in them for children and people would get upset”. 

She worries that the homeless will be forced to move somewhere in the city where they would be arrested.  “So where can someone just sit for a few moments and rest? If you’re homeless and walking the streets, where do you go?”

Donnie explained that the Monroe Park Master Plan included a section that addressed the homeless situation in the park.  “It specifically states in there that [the plan] wants to acquire a show of 75 non-homeless appearing people to one homeless appearing person because women are afraid of homeless people.”

Food Not Bombs also has a problem with the plan to bring in a private security force.  “Anytime you start privatizing security, that’s when peoples’ rights start getting violated left and right,” Donnie said, adding, “It seems sort of like an attempt to drive out people that VCU and the affluent white folks in the Fan don’t like being in that park.”

But Samuels defends his intentions.  “My goal is to make sure that I represent everybody in the 2^nd District and not any one group; not landowners over renters, not rich people over poor people, not poor people over rich people, anything like that.”  He added, “My goal is to really look out for what’s in the best interest of the district as a whole.”

Samuels also defends the intentions of others involved with this project.  “Our goal is to make sure that everybody feels welcome there regardless of socio economic condition, regardless of race, regardless of anything.  We want to make sure that this is a park that’s open for everyone.”

The full Monroe Park Master Plan can be viewed on-line at http://www.richmondgov.com/planninganddevelopmentreview/PlansAndDocuments.aspx.