Trust, but verify: construction contractors might abide by rules agreed upon with neighborhoods

Since the dust-up between neighborhoods, existing businesses and construction companies in downtown and Midtown over noise that continued unabated into the night, a mutual (and tenuous?) understanding seems to have been reached:

... the working group of residents and contractors ... got together and talked through the problems. They landed on a compromise that won’t need a change in law ....

The final draft is still being drawn up. But broadly, the rules require contractors to get special permission to blast between the hours of 9 pm and 7 am. And for other noisy activity – like pouring concrete – the builders have to submit a plan regarding their efforts to minimize the disturbance and notify the neighbors.

“We’re hoping that it works," [Erica] Gilmore says. "But if we hear complaints, we will revisit it.”

Recall that existing hotels are losing money because they are having to comp tourists and visitors who are unhappy with the night ruckus nearby. It seems that existing hotel companies are getting a dose of their own medicine, given that their construction projects were likewise hyper-local nuisances. But let's put aside for now the question of whether this deal would have been struck had the tourism industry not been pitted against itself.

I want to focus on the contractors and developers.

This week a manager from one of the huge Midtown projects told me that his company was going to continue 6:00 a.m. dynamite blasting for important utility lines, but that he did not have a firm schedule yet because the construction contractor brought in a bunch of heavy equipment and blocked some blasting areas. Reportedly, the blasting contractor could not convince the construction contractor either to move the equipment or to give him a schedule that he could set for blasting.

So, there is no firm blasting schedule. Area residents have just have to be prepared every morning "at sunrise" for the next few days for blasts that may or may not occur because some contractor cannot move his equipment or give other companies a firm idea when it would be moved.

If the bosses on these Midtown construction sites cannot even bother to work with one another to coordinate action in order to complete necessary tasks, why should we have faith that they are going to live by rules that prevent the erosion of the quality of life outside of their moneymakers? They seem to be too busy internally patrolling their own turfs to give a crap about the welfare of the surrounding community.


UPDATE:  A Midtown resident tells me that there was another sunrise dynamite blast today (01/30/15 -- 6:05 a.m) at a nearby construction site. Does the new curfew apply to Midtown or not?

We amount to more than "superimposed human silhouettes"

A city planner criticizes a Minneapolis improvement project totaling $50 million due to scant attention it gives to community-based input and democratic process. Given the recent move in the Metro Planning Department away from community-based planning toward a process sponsored by the Nashville Chamber of Commerce, he has some relevant things to say to us:

It would appear only a handful of people want this redesign, but it just so happens those handful of people are the one's with enough political connections to get the City to subsidize their want. We are witnessing the continuation of a failed top-down, 'Power Broker' system:

• Strategic political pressure is put on elected officials by influential insiders.
• The city starts the process by hiring the best outside ‘star’ consultant to tell us the things we likely already know.
• Consultant drafts renderings with the best design software money can buy that includes the finest superimposed human silhouettes unpaid interns can draft.
• Minimum public engagement requirements are hit by having people fill out online surveys while business and political insiders, not the countless thousands of daily users or small business owners, continue drive the bureaucratic process forward.

Where projects are funding from State and Federal sources, local input is limited to ensure the process goes as quickly as possible. Local political leaders go along with the process, despite it’s flaws, because it isn’t local money. It is something for nothing and, at that price, something is better than nothing.

In the planning profession, we spend a lot of time talking about the virtues of Jane Jacobs’ works but pay her little respect in practice. Our planning projects, and the leadership that supports them, still hold to modernist planning practices that have been long criticized. Our leadership, despite good intentions, continues to develop projects that accommodate those who do not live in the city all while paying lip-service to public input, diversity, and the little slices of chaos that make places great.

It begs the question: Are we still in the era of top-down modernist planning?

I don't know about Minneapolis, but Nashville is most certainly still in an era of top-down modernist planning, even with Metro being the primary funding source for many projects.

Yesterday, a person responded to my question about what he thought about proposals to change zoning and community character in order that historic buildings in Midtown give way for large hotels and mixed-use complexes, "It's the same developers who always get what they want. It's a done deal." Around the way, First Tennessee Park is being built with practically no community input, vague assurances from designers that it will reflect the local neighborhoods, and many "superimposed human silhouettes".

That's how growth happens in Nashville. Top-down, with power brokers driving planning and zoning. Metro Planning has even given up on community-based planning. Nashville Next, which pays lip-service to community input, has diluted the influence local communities can have on development by emphasizing region-wide coordination of opinions for one comprehensive vision for everyone. The Metro Planning Commission has few neighborhood-friendly, preservation-minded, affordability-touting advocates left to whom to appeal.

We are by no means nearing the end of top-down modernist planning. It chugs along unchecked in Nashville. The bulk of us are not much more than fine shadows to the power brokers.

Without warranty of community benefits, meaner streets can follow urban growth

"From the looks of things, Stringer Bell's worse than a drug dealer .... He's a developer."

-- The Wire (HBO)

No, not all developers can be compared to drug dealers. However, the point I take from the exchange between police detectives in the wildly popular HBO series, The Wire, is that a cartel of real estate growth and development exists that can displace people and destroy communities faster and more efficiently in pursuit of self-seeking ends than any black market ever could, precisely because the former is legal and planned with the blessing of powerful politicians. Legitimacy allows developers to distance from the more jarring and damaging effects of growth they cause local communities.

Whether or not individual developers act responsibly is no counterbalance to an economic system that steamrolls over democratic process and rarely delivers benefits to the degree promised, even when the scale used is trickle-down.

Attempts to balance the power of land development syndicates with the interests and common goods of local communities are uphill battles.

Even in places outside Nashville where meaningful attempts are being made to check the snowballing power of the real estate industry, bolstered by government giveaways, the sledding is tough:

Backers of a controversial proposal to impose new rules on developers looking for a Detroit public subsidy are counting on support from the small business community to combat the notion that the rules would be harmful to the city's growth.

The small business community's help could be critical as Detroit City Council President Brenda Jones prepares to reignite the debate early next year over the proposed community benefits ordinance, which Mayor Mike Duggan, the Detroit Regional Chamber and the Detroit Economic Growth Corporation oppose.

The small-business effect on the debate was evident earlier this month when the Michigan Black Chamber of Commerce, which represents thousands of neighborhood businesses in Detroit, joined the fight to block an attempt during state lawmakers' lame duck session to preemptively ban Detroit or other cities from passing a community benefits ordinance ....

The proposed community benefits ordinance would require certain developers seeking a tax break from the city or other public subsidy to enter into an agreement with community members that could address local hiring, environmental impacts and other community concerns.

Accountability is "controversial."

Of course, Detroit's "growth" lobby groups oppose any attempt to demand public accountability for developers receiving tax dollars, because accepting responsibility for their actions and being held to standards equals "higher costs and red tape." How can taxpayers claw back any of their revenues when developers fail to deliver if some sticks are not written into law with all of these carrots?

Nashville neighborhoods could use protective legislation like a community benefits ordinance. However, with a Mayor and current Metro Council exclusively obsessed with economic development over public infrastructure, such an ordinance would never enter the equation.

And then there are the local developers and construction companies who keep lobbying, financing and pressuring the already compliant politicos:

Metro Councilwoman Erica Gilmore wants to impose new rules barring construction louder than a certain decibel, between 9 p.m. and 7 a.m. [in Midtown].

For the time being, Gilmore has tabled her bill in reaction to complaints from builders and developers. They're taken aback by the bill, arguing that the proposed restrictions would cost them money, make their projects take longer to finish — and be more disruptive because they'd have to do more during the daytime traffic.

Gilmore said she's fielding a growing number of complaints from residents of buildings in Midtown and SoBro, and on Church Street, who say construction is disrupting their sleep.

But CM Gilmore is also getting complaints from the big hotel chains who have to comp their guests for late night noise from the construction sites where their competitors plan to locate. If this were anything but a thunder battle between competing stone giants (don't forget the nearby penthouse condo owners), I doubt it would get as much attention. Your average urban residential community is usually outflanked and defused by now.

Metro's Midtown "Open House" on the Amp threatened to turn into a town hall meeting earlier tonight

".... go to Cleveland. See what a mess it is."

Tonight's Midtown transit "open house" or "workshop" (or whatever officials are deciding to call it at the moment) nearly busted out into a full blown public hearing on the east-west connector after one person in the audience asked an Amp engineer who was finishing up at the podium if he would take questions from the floor.

The citizen expressed his opinion that he did not think that projections could be correct based on his own experience with metro transit. The engineer moved to the fellow and started answering his questions as if they were having a one-on-one, and someone else in the crowd spoke up and asked the engineer to use a microphone so everyone could hear him. The engineer declined to grab the mike and expressed his own wish that all questions be expressed at the tables.

I wondered why he seemed resistant to fielding some crowd questions before turning to the tables. As I saw it he could have answered and parlayed the group to dispersing more diplomatically without seeming so bent on individual conversation. If the reticence to discussing these issues is about controlling the rabble, it really does hit me the wrong way.

In the meantime, a third attendee spoke up and encouraged others present to go to Cleveland and see "the mess" that a similar system is there. Pitchforks were starting to emerge. Meeting organizers seemed on the edge of losing control to the masses.

But there was a lull, then some aside chatting, and before anyone else had a chance to take the floor, engineers regained control and got those in attendance to the tables where different members of their team could manage expectations.

Crisis caused by uppity populism averted.

Crowd backed down the hallway, the foyer, and outside.

In the meantime, people were still trying to get into the main room, but the crowd was stacking up in the hallway and out the front door. I actually left 20 mins into the meeting because I felt guilty about taking up space when I had already attended the East Nashville meeting. I asked one member of the design team whether they were expecting this many people. I learned that they were not either tonight or in East Nashville the night before last. I joked with another official as I was leaving whether the number of people in the building was a fire code violation. The reply: "I plead the 5th". When I got outside to my car, there were yet others walking through the parking lot to the building and I saw several cars circling and stalking potential parking spaces. As soon as I backed out one of them grabbed mine.

Before I left I heard interesting things. First of all, the engineer at the podium said with emphasis, "In no way are these final designs, yet". I do not recall him saying that in East Nashville. If he did it was not with as much verve or I would have remembered it. Whether he felt like he did not need to make the point across the river or whether this was an attempt to be more measured, he left himself wiggle room to refer to this stage as a "visioning" process. Although again, even if a final stage is "only" 30% complete, a good part of the vision seems already achieved. Haggling over the details at specific intersections does not seem like "visioning" to me.

I heard many more concerns expressed at this meeting than in East Nashville, particularly about where bus riders would park around West End, whether 5,000 riders per day with Amp was believable, whether historic preservation would be endangered by infrastructure changes and whether adding extra lanes would create more snarl. I was in earshot of a woman who exclaimed that, given the current parking situation along West End, there was absolutely no way that riders would be able to find parking to catch the bus. I heard one design team member tell one concerned transit rider asking for ridership comparisons to projections that he did not know what the current daily ridership was.

As I left, I noticed a police officer who seemed to be letting people into the room as others like me exited early and I wondered, with this much unexpected popular response to a transit proposal, pro and con, should not the public meeting process have started long ago with honest communication so that we would all not be so caught off-guard now? More specifically, why weren't we permitted to "vision" long before the transit authority reached 30% of the final stage of the project?

UPDATE: Rather than simply reporting the news, the Tennessean is resorting once again to bias by speculating in their report about how many green and red reps attended. Just like in East Nashville, most of those I saw in attendance had no form of pro or con signifiers displayed, so why does Brian Wilson feel emboldened to say that there was "balance" between pro and con? Did he interview every single person? I doubt he will share his method of counting, but it cannot be very scientific. There could have been many different points of view beyond simply polarized opinions, and it really is unfortunate when the news media fabricates "facts" instead of conveying them.

Controlling public meetings amounts to controlling outcomes

As we rapidly approach one of the first announced community meetings on "the Amp" bus rapid transit system connecting East Nashville and Downtown to West End, the Mayor's minions continue to insist (debatably) that the public has been given fair opportunities to address the questions of when and where rapid transit will go. The Mayor himself disqualified North Nashville from the process, saying that we should have read his mind and kissed the ring years in advance if we wanted to be considered worthy of rapid transit.

The Chamber of Commerce (which supports Amp) hired a lawyer-up public relations firm, which suggests to me that these meetings are going to be more bully pulpits for making the sale of AMP than they are open town hall meetings for gathering input from you and me.

Metro has a particularly heavy-handed history of conducting community meetings, whether it be holding meetings at days and hours inconvenient for most people to attend, not plainly specifying in published agendas that certain questions were up for discussion, couching issues in specialized jargon that makes average heads spin or strictly controlling how questions are asked to discourage messy democracy. These tactics become especially nasty given the strong executive form of Metro government, where voters have very little influence after elections on the Mayor's Office.

I've documented over and again here the draconian tactics that are used in the planning and rezoning process by Metro officials, but I went back through my emails people have sent me from community meetings they attended to find more examples.

One that stands out was related to me by Mike Peden. Last winter CM Edith Langster, empowered by a couple of developers and Metro Planning, filed a Midtown rezoning request to allow a number of properties to be exempted from a compromise supported by the community in 2012 to prepare for overlays consistent with the Midtown Community Plan. Community plans are heavily influenced by participatory public meetings periodically held.

Leaders in the community expressed concern by email about Langster's bill. Metro Planning held a community meeting last March and CM Jason Holleman encouraged constituents to attend saying of Langster's proposal that it would not provide "protections for individually National Register Eligible/National Register Listed buildings and design guidelines will not be included for the area around Elliston Place".

Mike attended the meeting and related what he witnessed:

The room was packed. Several people had to stand.

The attorney from the Planning Office that spoke is clearly in favor of ... CM Langster’s proposed rezoning. He spoke as if that bill has already passed.

There were several questions raised about transit and MTA, but he made it clear he was not going to discuss that issue.

Jason Holleman attempted to ask questions but the attorney from Planning would not allow him to speak. He said that is why they requested everyone write questions on the cards so he would not have to get into a one-on-one discussion with anyone

Community plans always involve discussions about transit options, so why should they be prohibited by a lawyer in a community meeting? Less than a month later a Metro Planning spokesperson would tell a Vanderbilt writer of a "cultural shift" prompting zoning changes in Midtown that included the need to "cut down expenditures on gas". If planners can bring up transit as a motivator for their policies, why can't the community raise the question with planners in community meetings?

Also, requiring questions on note cards is just another way of keeping the unwashed masses at arm's length. And shutting down a council member with questions about impact on design and preservation seems extreme.

But these are the kind of tactics you have to watch out for in the upcoming community meetings, which they tell you now are about getting more of your input. Will they listen and incorporate input? Given the track record, I am not a believer.

North Gulch gets HCA. West End now has Karl's Bad Cavern

Not too long ago the Hope Gardens neighborhood association went ballistic when Mayor Karl Dean's Music City Center project sent the Greyhound bus terminal packing to an old car dealership in the North Gulch (south of Hope Gardens). In the beginning it was not clear whether the move would be permanent (it eventually turned out not to be) so zealots came out of the woodwork criticizing CM Erica Gilmore for failing to raise more of a stink over the Mayor's plan. One of these critics, who would go on to be a "co-founder" of Friends of Sulphur Dell confided to me in 2010 that he was among of group of people looking for a challenger to run against Ms. Gilmore in 2011 (she won re-election easily).

These same people seemed very quiet to me when in 2011 the North Gulch area was considered as a potential minor league ballpark site, along with Sulphur Dell and the East Bank. Hope Gardens went all in on Sulphur Dell, even though it was not apparent that the North Gulch was any less advantageous, any less walkable for them. In retrospect, I believe it was because the Mayor had already signaled his plans for baseball to return to the Dell, although I see that it is now for much less than historical reasons.

Jump to today where we learn, on the heels of approval of Sulphur Dell as the ballpark site, the latest plan that the North Gulch is going to be used to save the HCA, whose West End Summit plan for two towers and a hotel seemed to have sunk below the surface of the water gathering once again at the bottom of a Midtown crater. The timing of these announcements is looking domino-like: the Sulphur Dell news itself came on the heels of the Mayor's announcement that the Riverfront would be used for something other than a ballpark. This seems to have "grand design" written all over it. However, I wonder how the folk in Hope Gardens are feeling about the new North Gulch plan. I assume that they are relieved that it is not the Greyhound bus terminal they once worried about being stuck with.

Karl's Bad Cavern (formerly the West End Summit site)

And then, there is Midtown. Back in 2012, Karl Dean embraced the West End Summit as if it were his own child:

Slated at an astounding $900,000 million, the project is one of the largest commercial developments in the area's history and is expected to double its current workforce of 1000 within five years, making it also one of the largest economic development projects in the area.

"HCA could have gone out of state for these headquarters but instead chose to grow jobs here in Nashville," said Mayor Karl Dean at an interview. "This project speaks volumes about the vitality of our West End corridor, the talent of our workforce and the vibrancy of our city."

The Mayor's Office issued a statement yesterday that said nothing of what he now thinks of the "vitality of the West End corridor", and it frankly sounds like a relieved, "Whew!"

"We appreciate that HCA is committed to keeping this $200 million investment, the 2,000 jobs and these two headquarters in Davidson County .... HCA has been a great partner throughout this process, and we look forward to working with them as they move forward."

But you can bet that the move of this troubled project to the Gulch (not to mention building an amphitheater for Martha Ingram on the Riverfront) likely had a lot to do with the ballpark ending up at Sulphur Dell. Even with a cavern still sitting on West End, our Mayor is an acknowledged real estate maximizer.

You are so Nashville if you give Midtown's new residents a $3,000,000 fitness center and Salemtown's new residents a cheap landfill

While we here in the North End are forced to abide a new clay-capped carcinogenic landfill via Metro Water, look what more affluent Midtown gets to enjoy: an expensive new fitness center at the Sportsplex.

The fitness center project comes on the heels of several proposed projects that will bring hundreds of new residents to Midtown. Southern Land Co. is building the six-story Elliston23 apartment and retail project at 2300 Elliston Place. Developer Tony Giarratana and an equity partner recently acquired two parcels at Elliston Place and 21st Avenue with plans to build apartments.

“When the sportsplex was completed, a fitness center was an afterthought,” said Tim Netsch, planning superintendent with Metro Parks.

 “It’s always been very popular, but small. Midtown is going to continue to grow with higher density and more residential. We thought it should be a priority to provide a new facility.”

West Nashville stands to get both bus rapid transit (with not a single guarantee for the future of lines along Charlotte Pike or in North Nashville) and a new fitness center to stay healthy, as if those people cannot already afford their own transportation and physical trainers. As if this were more than throwing money at sexy signature projects that Nashville does not need.

What do we get? Something else Nashville does not need: Metro Water's waste products buried along our watershed.

I'm sure Karl Dean's apologists will insist that Metro should pay for amenities for the bold and beautiful class along West End first, so that the wealth can fan out from there and trickle down to the third-class citizenry in North Nashville. Likewise, I can hear them insist that heavy metals and fuel contaminates have to be stored somewhere, and it sure won't be next to brand new brick-and-mortar projects along our city's western border.

URGENT: East Nashville leaders urge Planning Commission meeting attendance today on Midtown rezoning

From an email blast sent out to East Nashvillians earlier today and forwarded to me:

As you may be aware, the Metro Council reached a compromise 4 months ago on the proposed Midtown rezoning (BL2012-195), which maintained the current rules for development in midtown, but also acknowledged that some of those guidelines could change IF if other protections for quality of life were added instead. The Council ordinance, which was unanimously supported by the Council, including every East Nashville councilmember, directed the Planning Department to engage the community and begin the process to resolve these issues before the end of 2013. Midtown, like East Nashville, has a long history of weird commercial development standing next to historic buildings. Getting the design properties right for that area of town is, as Martha says, a good thing.

Specifically, the compromise Council legislation stated the following:

"Be it further enacted that the Metropolitan Planning Department staff shall prepare Urban Design Overlay Zoning Districts (UDOs) to achieve the goals of the Midtown Community Plan Update and other public policy goals. Such UDOs shall provide additional development incentives in exchange for a higher level of building and site design in regard to the provision of additional pedestrian amenities, context sensitive considerations, the provision for work force housing and historic preservation, and other community goals or by the purchase of transfer development rights. The Metropolitan Planning Department staff shall further submit proposed legislation to the Metropolitan Council to provide for the transfer of development rights from historic properties deemed appropriate by the Metropolitan Historic Zoning Commission. The Planning Department staff shall prepare such UDO and transfer of development rights legislation, and plans for incentivizing the construction of work force housing to the Metropolitan Council not later than December 3, 2013."

Unfortunately, Metro Planning staff and Councilmember Langster, contrary to the compromise unanimously approved by the Metro Council in BL2012-195, are bringing 163 of the previously proposed 455 acres of property contained in the Midtown rezoning proposal back to the Metro Planning Commission TODAY without any of the design guidelines or other stipulations that were agreed-upon last September.

Why should this matter to you? Because if a single councilmember and the Planning Department can circumvent the unanimous agreement of the rest of the council and ignore the need for public involvement in major rezoning issues in West Nashville, a single councilmember could do that here. Community input matters. One Councilmember should not be able to bully through major changes to our collective rules, on behalf of one or two developers and against the voice of his or her constituents.  I would encourage you, if you're able,  to attend the meeting today at 4:00 p.m. at the Sonny West Conference Center (old Howard School Building on 2nd Avenue) and voice your concerns. You can also e-mail Metro Planning Commissioners at:  planning.co...@nashville.gov [unlinked].

Please take a minute to support our neighbors on the other side of the river. There are thoughtful, responsive ways to balance development, historic protections,  and neighborhood interests, but they're best identified with public input and a transparent process.