I attended this morning's Pike design charette. It's a charade all right. Zimmerman and the County Board were supervising County Planning staff who were facilitating the community leaders. Community leaders were given brown, red, orange marking pens to make changes when allowed by County Planning Staff. No one was allowed to deviate in any significant way from Dover, Kohl's yuppification / gentrification plans. Dover and Kohl are a couple of good old boys who live in yuppie enclaves outside Miami and specialize in-fill redevelopment "planning" that conforms to the wants of local elected officials, e.g., Zimmerman and the County Board.
Oh, some participants want double deck hybrid buses on the Pike rather than streetcars, but they were ignored. These charades will cost Arlington taxpayers $216,000. For what? For citizens to make very minor changes to a massive redevelopment that was approved months ago behind closed doors at 2100 Clarendon Blvd.
Robert
41 comments:
All County Planning Staff want to do is push infill of the Pike. The Senior Planning Staff person in charge of Pike redevelopment doesn't live in Arlington. Nor do the Senior Planning Staff persons who pushed East Falls Church redevelopment, Shirlington redevelopment, Crystal City redevelopment, etc.
Dover, Kohl's excuse for not just assisting the owners of market rate affordable apartments on the Pike to renovate their buildings and keep them affordable: "Some bad developers might build expensive townhouses if we don't in-fill the Pike".
Dover, Kohl, is clueless. They planned Pike redevelopment according to Boss Zimmerman's specifications.
County Planning Staff standing over each table telling the "community leaders" what they can and can't do while Zimmerman moves around the room supervising. Can you say "done deal"?
Hynes and Tejada won't even mention the crisis looming in in our school system because of a huge projected growth in student population. I may not be able to do anything about that megalomaniac Zimmerman but I sure do have a choice in November - Audrey Clement for County Board.
Do the math. The interest on $160 million at 4% is $6.4 million a year. So for what it would cost to build the Pike streetcar system you could own and operate a double deck bus system on the Pike and still have $160 million in the bank.
Spending on streetcars rather than schools is what happens when autocrats rule for 30 years.
Thanks for the photos of the double deckers. FYI, double deck buses in Las Vegas are a big hit.
I would like to know how many millions Dover-Kohl has already been paid for this design work. Anyone know?
This is what we deserve for electing and re-electing a megalomaniac to the County Board.
I hear south of Billings is a pretty pleasant place to retire.
People, there is going to be a huge shortage of classroom space within 2 years.
Don't ask Dover, Kohl. They don't want to talk about it.
How about regular hybrid buses? Just start integrating them into the Metrobus and ART fleets.
Where is Dover, Kohl's economic analysis of the effects of tripling density along the Pike on public infrastructure. Appears there isn't any.
They just want to collect their $182,000 for hosting the charettes to Zimmerman's specifications and go home to Miami.
How about leasing a few different types of hybrid buses and putting them on the Pike - like right now? Oh, they can't do it, money is being spent on the Artisphere.
For what the Artisphere has cost so far the County could have subsidized the Barcroft Apartments to maintain affordability and to give our entire apartment complex an exterior makeover.
Barcrofter, it's part of the County's 2-step program for recycling the middle class out of Arlington. Step 1, allow housing to deteriorate. Step 2, point to the deteriorated state of Arlington's housing and say it's got to be 'improved' so only people with incomes of $60,000 a year and up can live there.
How much per-hour your do you have to earn to have a $60,000 income? $28.85
Dover, Kohl are nothing but greedy Reagan-era yuppies. What can you expect?
Zimmerman has become a classic Rockefeller Republican. In the event you haven't noticed. Bad planning, bad architecture, megalomania, tax and spend extravagantly for pet projects, arrogant, autocratic, etc.
Yes, Victor Dover and Joseph Kohl are classic VPI good ol boy Reagan-era Yups.
Take a look at other places they've made over. No one who earns less than $60,000 can afford to live there. Why would Zimmerman NOT choose them to run his Pike Charades?
Classic Reagan-era Yups? So are Zimmerman, Fisette, and Favola. Hynes is a classic 70's Partyer. Nada Tejada just gets along and goes along.
Joseph Kohl was asked why he and his firm aren't making over inside-the-Beltway downtown McLean and inside-the-Beltway downtown Annandale instead of completely urbanizing Arlington. No answer.
Next up for Dover, Kohl is yuppifying the Bureaugard Street corridor in Alexandria.
Meaning...the older apartments where retail workers from Landmark Plaza live, the older apartments where NVCC students live, and the older apartments where hotel workers from Mark Center live.
Know what the design charette in progress today is all about? You get to post your little changes and suggestions on a poster board which is placed on a wall with a hundred other poster boards.
Ask the Smart Growth proponents how smart it is for hotel employees at Mark Center to have to drive 30 miles to affordable housing in PW County.
Smart Growth...the Ultimate Charade
The County Boards from my childhood/teenhood in the sixties and seventies are light years away from the current Board. Back then, there was a balance on the Board, some Democrat, some Republican, and often an Independent as well. There was a moderate and sensible progressivism that would never have permitted the out of control "development" that has happened over the past 15-20 years. But then again, we've had the same people on the Board for the past 15-20 years. I'm bored, to say the least, with the same old faces on the Arlington Politburo. I never thought I'd consider voting for the Green Party, but Ms. Clements will get my vote so the current Board monopoly can be broken.
There's going to be a Bikeshare public meeting tonight. Part of the Smart Growth dogma - everyone ride a bicycle. Can the mobility disabled in Arlington please have some transit services besides Metroaccess? Circulator vans and buses would be great. How much $$$ is being poured into bicycle sharing? Is this the next Artisphere?
Yupette, Great Falls or Missoula?
Missoula or Helena.
The County Board is the Executive Committee of a large bi-partisan political machine that rewards its supporters with lucrative income opportunities in a number of areas ranging from the arts to neighborhood redevelopment.
Tonight's Pike Charade - brainwashing the sheeple into believing the loss of open space in the Pike corridor because of massive in-fill and the use of parking lots and streets as parks is a good thing.
Remember Shirlington? Massive infill, no open space created, massive parking created, hundreds of retail and restaurant jobs created, no affordable housing, no public infrastructure except for a replacement library that took 8 years to build.
Result. Massive SOV traffic and parking mess. Out-of-state REIT got the gold mine. Nearby communities are used for parks and recreation. People responsible for Shirlington retired and moved on.
County Board, Dover Kohl, and County Staff are increasingly frustrated with the market rate affordable apartment owners who want nothing to do with the County.
County played the same games with the families who owned apartment buildings in Pentagon City over the baseball stadium, six years ago.
Market forces have created a concentration of affordable housing opportunities along Columbia Pike -- so of course Chris Zimmerman has to intervene so they can be torn down.
Zimmerman is increasingly irrational. He's lost touch with setting priorities and fiscally responsible management.
Cost to the County for Dover, Kohl's planning services will be $474,000 during FY 11.
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