Monday, December 03, 2007

Controversial Salemtown Developer Gets His 15 Seconds of Fame in the Nashville City Paper

City Paper writer William Williams decided to showcase controversial developer and Salemtown Duplex King Taurus McCain in an article that suggests Hume Street is moving on up thanks largely to McCain's Schoene Ansicht development, which has its own checkered past with the residents who actually live here. Say what you will about the Tennessean's flawed past reportage on Schoene Ansicht; at least they acknowledged that the development generated controversy. The City Paper sexes up 6th as halcyon and heavenly.

Mr. McCain, whom I once witnessed threaten the Salemtown Neighbors President with physical violence, is quoted as saying that he's bringing diversity to our neighborhood (as if we were not already diverse):

UP’s Taurus McCain says Salemtown, once fully redeveloped, will offer significant diversity in both its building styles and the socio-economic/age ranges of its residents. “You will have something very special that Nashville hasn’t seen,” McCain said.
Diversity from Taurus McCain? The same real estate investor who has only built one duplex (priced above $200,000) and the Schoene Ansicht townhouses? The same guy who has opposed every attempt to have downzoning include detached single family homes? The same property owner who intends to keep blighted trailer-like duplexes on 6th Avenue standing rather than tear down and build quality detached and affordable single-family homes after Metro Council rezoned his lots for the same?

Mr. McCain has demonstrated over and over again that "fully developed" means one thing: "fully duplexified for the fullest dollars." If appealing to Taurus McCain as a source on diversity in Salemtown is supposed to inspire street cred at the City Paper's neighborhoods department, then the CP has shot itself in the foot.

The fact that a Salemtown renaissance is being narrated by a journalist who not too long ago mischaracterized and overgeneralized all infill in the neighborhood as "run-down, outdated and/or ugly" is laughable. And Mr. Williams' ideation that the developments of Taurus McCain represent part of a cleansing surge is a total farce. Just keep in mind that the last time Taurus McCain and William Williams came together in the same City Paper article (written by reporter Bill Harless) it was a total debacle for our neighborhood under the headline "Developments cause trouble in Salemtown." After that circus, Taurus McCain told me that his investment team was considering never using the "Salemtown" name again in their developments.

That's how committed Mr. McCain is to our neighborhood. His community commitment extends only as far as his credit limit and his bank account will allow. If there weren't any money to be had in Salemtown, he wouldn't be here. And both the developer and the journalist seem to be concocting a fable about our neighborhood that serves their own purposes rather than the neighborhood itself.

7 comments:

  1. Anonymous comment removed. You can slink and cower behind the anonymous nametag and impugn me if you like, but I'll be damned if I sit here and let you slander Salemtown.

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  2. Instead of blasting the developer, the development and the writer who covered it, why don't you write something positive and inspiring of your own that would either attract the developers you seek or educate the rest of us on what you think the neighborhood needs? All I'm getting out of your post is defensiveness and negativity.

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  3. So how long do you think I should make this post? What we've had with UP, LLC. and Taurus McCain is a totally self-serving and uncollaborative development team. I didn't divulge all of my bad experiences with Taurus McCain, but highlighted the ones that speak to the subject of William Williams' CP piece.

    I've written over 2,700 posts and a number of those have been proactive statements of the kind of developers I believe we need, so it is unfair to label me as generally defensive and negative (and geez, I think that defensiveness is a normal reaction to a developer threatening a neighborhood leader with violence).

    But someone needs to document the bad experiences we've had with Schoene Ansicht, and even if William Williams refused to do it the story still needs to be told. How journalistically objective or honest is it that he didn't tell the negative side of Schoene Ansicht?

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  4. The story has been told, by you countless times. However I think that this has become a personal matter for you. Salemtown needs some good press and I welcome it. Other property owners welcome it. So respect Salemtown as much as you want everyone else to respect Salemtown. Thanks for the good press William Williams.

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  5. If demanding that the quality of life in my local community be protected from predatory developers and sensationalizing journalists is "personal," then yes, this is a personal matter for me. If making my neighborhood better and keeping it diverse for the sake of my children is personal, then it is a personal matter for me.

    You know, any anonymous commenter living outside of this neighborhood can call themselves "Salem" and act like they have stock in Salemtown.

    I'm still waiting for that flood of supportive Salemtown property owners to come to an association meeting and beat back the continuous opposition I hear to Taurus McCain and hyperduplexification of our community. I've heard no property owners who live in the neighborhood stand up and say, "Hey, let's build more duplexes or another multi-family dwelling too small for a real family to actually live in!"

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  6. It's perfectly honorable of you to want a high quality of life for you and yours. The developer's listed in the article and the journalist (staying on subject here) have done something good for Salemtown. The neighborhood association has done some great things for the area. You are actually putting down people that like the loft condo living because, you only want families in your neighborhood ("dwelling too small for a real family to live in"). What if people actually like this type of living? Should we be pushed to other areas if we like the North End, just because you have decided that this area in you opinion cannot have families, empty nesters, partnerships, and singles. Your definition of a family seems to be people with children and that anything else is anti-positive growth.

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  7. Okay, for the sake of argument, I'll play along as if you really do live here in the neighborhood.

    Your conclusion that I only want families and no empty nesters in the neighborhoods shows that you drew it from one or two posts rather than actually reading what I have written in the past.

    I have told developers over and over again that it is unrealistic for us to expect that only single family houses will get built here and that all many of us here want is a balance between multi- and single-family dwellings. I told the Salem Gardens group (which included Taurus McCain) that if they would have thrown 1 single family home into the mix on their 6 properties, I wouldn't have spoken against their plans to put up 5 other townhouses at the Planning Commission or Metro Council. And I have argued for development balance over and over again on Enclave.

    But many developers here don't want to work with the neighborhood. Mr. McCain has told neighbors here that he will never build a single family home on his property. There is no balance in that. All I am asking for the sake of the long-term health and diversity of this neighborhood is that there be a balance (it need not be 1:1) between SFHs and MFHs. The ones you claim are doing such good for neighbors won't be influenced by neighborhood feedback unless they are forced to in Public Hearings.

    That is exactly what happened in Mr. McCain's case. He was forced by a Metro Council vote based on both neighborhood feedback and the Planning Commission's recommendation to build single family homes if he tears some of his duplexes down. So, he has decided not to tear some blighted duplexes down. Oh yeah, that's real good for our neighborhood. (BTW, the other investors in the Salem Gardens team seem to have accepted the zoning decision, because they are now building a single family home on their property that looks like it is in accordance with the spirit of the Planning Commission's recommendation that 3 homes be built on the 6 Salem Gardens' lots).

    In so far as he is merely promoting Taurus McCain without an honest and unflinching look at the former's actions (including a Metro citation for failing to control erosion from stormwater run off, even after he was asked by neighbors to put up silt fence), William Williams is not good for Salemtown, no matter how much he thinks he is.

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