Ever wonder what all the people in our quiet residential neighborhoods are supposed to do for open space and activity space once our neighborhoods are urbanized? Not to worry. Chris Zimmerman and his colleagues at Smart Growth America and their friends who control the REITS who are set to urbanize our neighborhoods have it all 'planned'. Our streets are going to be turned into open space, activity space, and recreation space. Don't expect REITs that are profiting enormously from dedicating a few hundred square feet of plaza space surrounded by retail and restaurants to pay for acres of open space. It's not going to happen. What to do? Task Arlington's bloated 'planning' staff (almost none live in Arlington) with converting residential streets in quiet neighborhoods into recreation space for New Urbanists who live in corridors like Columbia Pike, Lee Highway, Rosslyn-Crystal City, and Four Mile Run-Shirlington. Of course, Zimmy's own neighborhood is off-limits as are the neighborhoods of his good buds on the County Board, Jay Fisette and Walter Tejada. Stay tuned for 'Complete Streets' coming to your neighborhood soon.
Pike Rider
29 comments:
Once Zimmerman is gone off the C.B. I want and expect a real debate about "New Urbanism". All "Smart Growth" has given me over the past 15 years is much more traffic and much higher taxes.
You don't expect them to dodge streetcar tracks on the Pike, do you?
Rosslyn will be the prototype neighborhood for "complete streets".
So, let me guess. Parks and Rec gets to use Jumbotrons, aka large media screens, just approved by the Zimmerman County Board in your quiet residential neighborhood to boost the attendance of a supposedly local event?
Do the math: The regional Oktoberfest in Shirlington had 10,000 attendees this year and Shirlington contains 1100 parking spaces. It was packed to overflowing. Obviously Oktoberfest 2014 has to be extended to adjoining neighborhoods. Parks and Rec is another bloated bureaucracy that's always looking for more money for more events, programs, and projects.
Here's what Arlington County Staff who live in Fairfax County should do: leave Arlington neighborhoods alone and fix the "planning" disasters in Fairfax County instead, starting with Merrifield.
Agree. Maybe there's an excuse for the way Tysons was 'planned' 40 years ago. No excuse for the Merrifield redevelopment mess today.
And County Staff who live in Prince William County should leave us alone and go redevelop beautiful downtown Woodbridge.
Merrifield needs an aquatic center, three live theaters, a lighted synthetic surface soccer complex, streetcar service to and from the Metro station, and a multi-purpose arts center.
Fairfax County residents Barbara Donnellan, Terry Holzheimer, Bob Brosnan, and their staff members who also live in Fairfax County should start a Smart Growth Merrifield Coalition to save Merrifield from Dumb Growth.
Isn't this a hoot. Who are the Nimbys folks? The residents of a tiny county that's already crowded and which is already providing a massive amount of social services to tens of thousands of people in need?
While we're at it, how about Smart Growth planning the Thurgood Marshall Mixed Use Redevelopment on Lake Barcroft?
Yupette, how about running a photo of Vornado's CEO's home in Connecticut, with his yachts in his front yard and Stonehenge replica in his back yard?
I nominate Scott McCaffrey and the Sun Gazette (recently moved its offices to McLean) to help form a Smart Growth McLean Coalition. Redevelop all those old strip shopping plazas into mixed use high density. The Salona Estate doesn't need a nature education center and public gardens, it needs a mixed use athletic complex with lighted synthetic fields.
I nominate the following for the Guinness Book of World Records:
Fastest Response Time by a Local Law Enforcement Agency. On June 3, 2013 two Latino adolescents began kicking a soccer ball in Douglas Park across the street from Chris Zimmerman's home. Thirty five seconds later an Arlington Police Department cruiser reached the scene and told the perpetrators they would be arrested if they didn't leave the park.
Same thing occurs when kids from Westover skateboard past Walter Tejada's home in Dominion Hills on the way home from the skateboard park on Wilson Blvd.
FYI, police tactical units routinely stake out neighborhoods near C.B. members' homes to keep 'undesirables' out of the neighborhoods.
Don't forget lovely Sterling, and beautiful downtown Centerville.
Thanks for this. Why does so much development and redevelopment have to be packed into one tiny county. The people doing the packing don't live here. Time to send THEM packing.
Merrifield. What a mess. More development and redevelopment in an metrorail corridor that's already over-developed.
Why are they blocking off residential streets and then telling us we have to ride bicycles everywhere, winter, spring, summer, fall? More bicycles jammed onto fewer residential streets, like beautiful downtown Amsterdam.
Same half-dozen law firms / REITS that push smart growth here push dumb growth elsewhere inside the beltway.
It's December 29th, 40 degrees, and raining hard. Would anyone except a New Urbanist nut case tell residents to bicycle anywhere today?
New Urbanism / Smart Growth is full employment for a bloated bureaucracy that commutes to 2100 Clarendon Blvd. from Fairfax, PW, Loudoun, etc., after dropping their kids off at one of Arlington's new or newly-renovated schools.
Same New Urbanist nut cases who approved the construction of 7,500 new parking spaces in Arlington since January 1, 2012.
What we'll see next: "Street Closed to Traffic Between April 1st and November 1st for Outdoor Activities".
Same New Urbanist nut cases who inflated the commercial real estate bubble and are inflating the luxury residential bubble.
Take a trip up to the 10th Floor (Zoning) at 2100 Clarendon Blvd. if you want to see a big group of non-residents busy at work completely urbanizing Arlington.
Arlington Police are always ready to help 'enforce conformity' at the request of ACDC ward heelers.
Smart Growth is a big Ponzi scheme, taxpayers are the suckers.
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