Thursday, June 30, 2011

Dover, Kohl's Prescription for the Pike: Urbanization + Gentrification

Hello Yupette,

No surprises from Dover, Kohl during the wrap-up session of the Pike Charades, there's going to be massive urbanization and gentrification of the Pike. If you want to live in affordable housing on the Pike you're going to have to earn 60% of area median income, which is $62,000 today. At least 10,000 new housing units will be constructed to ensure 5,000 are 'affordable'. Suburban character of the Pike will be ruined by massive infill. Stream beds, parking lots, suburban streets, hillsides, and sidewalks will be used for parks and recreation. No transit options have been considered except for Zimmerman's $160 million streetcar system. Schools and similar public infrastructure received no mention.

Oh, Dover, Kohl used a biased before-after architectural charade to get the a biased audience (no Latinos and Latinas attended) to agree that architectural renderings look better than photographs of old buildings. LOL.

For this we paid these Dover, Kohl turkeys $474,000 during FY 2011 and $182,000 over the past week to facilitate Zimmerman's Pike Charades? That sucks.

Maybe you want Arlington to be a redevelopment opportunity for every out-of-state planner, developer, lawyer, and REIT that throws big bucks at the County Board and gives County Planning Staff 'cash rewards' for, among other things, telling minorities they will be arrested for attending planning meetings. Not me.

Mary
Douglas Park

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dover, Kohl is Arlington's Public Enemy #2. Chris Zimmerman is Public Enemy #1.

Anonymous said...

Want change? Dump County Board incumbents.

Anonymous said...

Well, what do you expect after 30 years of 1-party rule in Arlington County?

Rt 29 said...

Next up is Lee Highway corridor total gentrification.

Hallandale Beach/Hollywood Blog said...

Dear Yupette:

Your spot-on post of Monday not only gave me a case of deja vu, but also a chance to share your plight with my friends and blog readers down here in South Florida, as it was yet another easily-made comparison between Arlington County's longstanding, patronizing and elitist, top-down (faux pro-active) attitude towards public policy, and the South Florida town I've lived in since leaving Arlington eight years ago. Sometimes, there are too many eerie similarities for comfort.
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2011/06/coral-gables-planning-firm-dover-kohl.html

Mary's point earlier about the lack of Latinos at the public events immediately reminded me of what I personally witnessed at public events in AC featuring the County's head honchos and Emergency Preparedness folks in the months immediately after 9/11.
Very, very few Hispanic faces.

I took the management types to task repeatedly about the County's ostrich-like outreach and attitude towards communicating effectively with the area's sizable Hispanic population, not just the language barrier, per se, but the cultural ones as well.

The County made so many ridiculous assumptions about human behavior, and esp. predictable behavior of recent immigrants, as if, somehow, you could just ignore the differences and just re-imagine them as just more arrivals from Boston, Long Island or Philly, and not from villages in El Salvador or Honduras.
In particular, how these recent arrivals might react to news of an evacuation, a CBW attack that required massive school lock-downs or other very unusual events.

It finally got to the point that I and many other residents had to take them to task for thinking that the School Board had somehow solved the problem for them.
It would've been laughable if it wasn't so personally upsetting at seeing such cluelessness -in charge!

For those of you who never knew or forgot, the reality is that for all its claims to hipness and sophistication, for a time, the person in charge of the County's Emergency Preparedness had an office that was about half-the size of a small walk-in closet at one of the nicer condos in town.
Meanwhile, as we all knew(know), there was plenty of wasted office space the County had at their HQ that they could've quickly repurposed -but didn't.
At least, quick enough for me, my friends and others in the community who were paying close attention.
If only I'd has a blog then!

Dave

2100 said...

Hallandale, Arlington's Director of Community Planning, Housing, and Development, Robert Brosnan, has received at least two "Cease and Desit" orders to stop Arlington's Planning Staff (about 80% of whom don't live in Arlington County) from threatening Latinos with arrest for attending meetings and spreading malicious gossip about residents who oppose massive gentrification.

Anonymous said...

Dover, Kohl flat-out lied about the parking lots and parking garage at Barcroft Park being empty. Maybe they are, at 7 AM Sunday morning.

By the way, GWU is going to spend $4 million improving the baseball field at Barcroft Park and the field will be synthetic and it will be used 10 months a year. So there will be lots of college baseball games played at Barcroft Park.

John S., Douglas Park said...

I believe Dover, Kohl is guilty of planning malpractice. It's not just that Dover, Kohl deliberately failed to mention already-overcrowded schools. Dover, Kohl also failed to calculate the effects of a huge increase in impervious surface in the Pike corridor on storm water runoff into Four Mule Run. Dover, Kohl also deliberately ignored the effects of 10,000 new parking spaces on Pike transportation.

Alex. said...

Wait until you see what Dover, Kohl has planned for S. Beauregard Street / King Street on the Alexandria / Arlington border.

Anonymous said...

The County Board I remember as a child and teenager was balanced and moderate between some Republicans and some Democrats, which the occasional Independent. Those Boards were sensible regarding the balance between development, schools, etc. Not the current Board, they have been out of control with their spending on expensive White Elephants (the Artisphere for example), the Pike trolley, etc., while ignoring overcrowding in schools, fiscal responsibility in tough economic times, encouraging out of control development and McMansions to the detriment of all Arlington neighborhoods. That is what happens when one party or one set of politicians of ANY party remains in power too long.

Anonymous said...

Dover, Kohl wants to push South Florida development schemes that go bust onto Columbia Pike so we too can experience 50 percent declines in our home values, and struggle with below-water mortgages. Then they'll move onto the suckers in the next state.

Anonymous said...

Time to sell out -- move to Montana -- anywhere but Butte.

Anonymous said...

Chris Zimmerman is Rosslynizing Columbia Pike. Cool!

Pike Rider said...

Cool for the Yuptards, not for me.

Anonymous said...

What's so "cool" about my quiet street becoming a skateboarding, rollerblading, bicycling, running, walking, dog exercising area 18 hours a day?

Anonymous said...

Hi, Yupette, can you post a photo of Douglas Park across the street from Chris Zimmerman's home before and after Dover, Kohl yuppification?

Anonymous said...

Chris Zimmerman gets a pastoral park -- the rest of us get urban mayhem.