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Jun. 17th, 2014 09:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vicarzWent to a community meeting tonight regarding the conversion of the jewish retirement home property. Good thing I went.
1. It's not just the old folks home - the entire property is being "liquidated"
2. The prior meetings and input had no bearing on the plan they selected
3. Zoning greatly restricts what they can do with the property. However they can have more height that most of the surrounding area.
4. Mixed use is a proposal, though the hood seems down on condos. The community is really fired up about possible parking impact.
5. A fucking obnoxious possibly orthodox jewish couple was there and unbelievably rude - the baby noise I could understand, but their toddler was allow to play, sing, rustle plastic bags, talk, to the degree a person beside the creeps asked them to reign the kid in - I leaned up to agree (I also shh'd the kid to no effect - trust me it was bad). Curiously they were the one voice that sung they couldn't support a giant building full of fully subsidized charity housing any more because part-time wallmart and target employees should live in the city too and rent's too high.
6. The meeting I attended met their procedural requirement for public hearings - there was no need for more to put the package, not visible to the public, before the lame-duck board for a vote.
Overall everyone was pissed off about the plan for similar or compatible reasons. The participants were polite enough though not orderly - understandably as there was not enough time for all the comments and questions. Worse, the railroaded political process was quite obvious - all the decisions were being made by people not accountable to the community.
My favorite request/observation was to hold the fucking meeting in the community where this was taking place - it's a walking community and they put the meeting in the petworth library - some distance away compared to community spaces.
It was less crazy - nobody yelled racism! - than I expected, and I was impressed with the input overall. However the fact all the ultimate decision making was taking place insulated from the public was disturbing.
1. It's not just the old folks home - the entire property is being "liquidated"
2. The prior meetings and input had no bearing on the plan they selected
3. Zoning greatly restricts what they can do with the property. However they can have more height that most of the surrounding area.
4. Mixed use is a proposal, though the hood seems down on condos. The community is really fired up about possible parking impact.
5. A fucking obnoxious possibly orthodox jewish couple was there and unbelievably rude - the baby noise I could understand, but their toddler was allow to play, sing, rustle plastic bags, talk, to the degree a person beside the creeps asked them to reign the kid in - I leaned up to agree (I also shh'd the kid to no effect - trust me it was bad). Curiously they were the one voice that sung they couldn't support a giant building full of fully subsidized charity housing any more because part-time wallmart and target employees should live in the city too and rent's too high.
6. The meeting I attended met their procedural requirement for public hearings - there was no need for more to put the package, not visible to the public, before the lame-duck board for a vote.
Overall everyone was pissed off about the plan for similar or compatible reasons. The participants were polite enough though not orderly - understandably as there was not enough time for all the comments and questions. Worse, the railroaded political process was quite obvious - all the decisions were being made by people not accountable to the community.
My favorite request/observation was to hold the fucking meeting in the community where this was taking place - it's a walking community and they put the meeting in the petworth library - some distance away compared to community spaces.
It was less crazy - nobody yelled racism! - than I expected, and I was impressed with the input overall. However the fact all the ultimate decision making was taking place insulated from the public was disturbing.
