Today this blog is 10 years old

The last decade was a gas.

Let's do it again sometime.

Poverty & gentrification in the North End

Metro's map: 20% to 100% people in poverty in the North End

According to a study of poverty in rich countries:

United States poverty rates are at or near the top of the range when compared with poverty rates in other rich countries. The United States child and elderly poverty rates seem particularly troublesome. America’s elders also have poverty rates that are high, particularly on relative grounds. In most rich countries, the relative child poverty rate is 10 percent or less; in the United States, it is 21.9 percent. What seems most distinctive about the American poor, especially poor American single parents, is that they work more hours than do the resident parents of other nations while also receiving less in transfer benefits than in other countries

From Governing map: Salemtown definitely gentrified 2009-2013

Governing's "gentrification" explanation:

lower-income Census tracts experienced significant growth in both home values and educational attainment. To be eligible to gentrify, a tract's median household income and median home value needed to fall within the bottom 40th percentile of all tracts within a metro area at the beginning of the decade. Tracts considered to have gentrified recorded increases in the top third percentile for both inflation-adjusted median home values and percentage of adults with bachelors’ degrees. 

Is there a correlation between poverty and gentrification in Salemtown?

Still no love for good old Jefferson Street in the Sounds' logo reboot

Well, local baseball fans were predictably unhappy with the Nashville Sounds odd "guitar-orange" choice of new colors for 2015 unis:

So the team owners introduced their reboot in January:

The main problem with the old-new color scheme is that it alluded "to a tourist strip more than a mile away rather than the neighborhood that's in the shadow." The new-new color scheme returns to the previous colors to make the old guard fans happy, but the modifications say nothing about Jeff St:

The team's new identity, brought to life by Brandiose, a San Diego, Calif. company, pays tribute to Nashville as the world-famous "Music City." The centerpiece of the identity is a new guitar pick "N" logo stylized from an f-hole on a guitar. The logos feature Music City style lettering and the platinum silver color is a reference to platinum records associated with the music industry.

Mind you, one of the new uniform options for 2015 is a jersey that literally says, "Music City," along with a cap with the initials "MC." So, there is already an unmistakably straightforward tribute to Music City. The emphasis is still on the tourism enclaves of Nashville without any doff of the cap to the neighbors and proud history of the community in which it sits.

Before council approval, the Dean administration and Sounds brass were dropping Jeff St monikers like "Jimi Hendrix" (who spent time in Jeff St.'s musical culture after his military discharge) with such reverence that one would expect to hear Hendrix's 1969 Woodstock version of the Star-Spangled Banner played once a week in the new stadium.

Is it too much to ask that the red in the latest Sounds uniform version be called, "Hendrix Red House red"? While a Hendrix album did go double-platinum, many artists who have come through Nashville have platinum honors. How about a specific mention for a Jefferson Street performer?

It's not like I expect a color change to "purple haze" or "Jimmy James blue." It's not like I expect the Sounds to flip their new guitar scoreboard into the left-handed position that Hendrix played. It would just be nice if the team owners could give some kind, any kind of nod to Jefferson Street's music history.

Traffic & parking planning in Salemtown sinks from deficient to dumpster fire with latest ballpark predicament

First, Metro tells us that they blew up their $65,000,000 First Tennessee Park construction budget because they didn't account for the age of the buried utility lines. Yesterday another shoe dropped: the garage that was supposed to keep game day fans from filling up our vanishing parking spaces won't be baseball ready until the 2016 season. That's an entire traffic-clogged baseball season to you and me:

Two and a half months before opening day at the Nashville Sounds' new baseball stadium, Metro officials are searching for places where fans can park their cars.

That's because an $18 million parking garage to accompany the city-financed stadium won't be ready this season, presenting complications for the inaugural year of First Tennessee Park ....

The 1,000-space garage — paid for by Metro and built by the state of Tennessee on state-owned land — is part of an agreement between the two governmental entities and the Sounds. The plan is for state employees to eventually use the garage during the day and for stadium-goers to use the garage at night and on weekends.

But the state, which will own the four-story garage, only recently broke ground on the project and state officials estimate it won't be finished until Oct. 31.

How is the Mayor working to extinguish this dumpster fire? Well, to start, four hours before the bad news broke, his spin squad announced a media tour of the ballpark construction site to take reporters' minds off the negative impact of the parking snafu on the local neighborhoods. He also promises a "temporary parking plan" using shuttles and parking lots off-site. Even when the garage was part of the concept as planned back in 2013, the Mayor made vague references to shuttles and off-site parking lots with few specifics or details, so I do not have much faith in his latest parking plan. I think baseball fans will be scouring Germantown and Salemtown for parking, especially because there are no spaces to be had downtown.

I tried to warn CM Erica Gilmore about the need for a traffic and parking plan, but she wouldn't listen as she pounded ballpark construction through the council. She has already told me point-blank that she will not even consider reserved street parking for Salemtown residents. She does not have her ducks in a row on parking issues in our neighborhood. And she's a last-term lame duck herself this election year, so I'm not expecting any high flying at the council level this spring and summer as we fight for parking spaces near our own homes.

For his part, Nashville Sounds team owner Frank Ward uses the occasion to lecture on the differences between being realists and expecting perfection:

"Will it be perfect?" Sounds owner Frank Ward said of the parking plan. "No, but it will help alleviate the parking issues. And we're working hand-in-hand with the city in coming up with that and making sure that we get it out to all our fans in sufficient time.

"Part of the plan with the city is to minimize the inconvenience of residents in Salemtown and Germantown and to keep [the parking] all south of Jefferson Street."

Maybe I missed something. Who expects perfection? Please, Mr. Ward, don't confuse demanding good and careful planning before jumping into historically huge construction with "perfection." Don't confuse expecting the mayor to have contingency plans already publicized with "perfection." Don't confuse a real, transparent risk assessment of higher costs after ground is broken with "perfection."

Despite the fact that that his club is now living on the Metro dime, Mr. Ward's ultimate allegiance is not to us taxpayers but to the Sounds ownership group and to the luxury suite and other season ticket holders.

However, I am pleased to see that Mr. Ward can for once utter the name, "Salemtown" with reference to the impact of his new toy. Hopefully, the Nashville Sounds will start treating us with more respect as time goes on.

I will not put my money on it, though.

Mr. Ward and the Sounds stopped their nostalgic references to Sulphur Dell and Jefferson Street once the council rubber stamped the Mayor on the plan. The nods to local history are over.

Moreover, I'm told that when our association's event organizers approached the Sounds about co-sponsoring a recent event, the club sent some left-over bobbleheads and out-dated t-shirts. That is not much of a sponsorship. It is rather pathetic.


UPDATE: The spate of reporters tweeting pictures today of the Mayor's tour of the new ballpark says to me that it was effective in turning a bad story into positive news media PR. Rather than reaching out to the neighborhoods most directly affected by the delay in the parking garage until 2016, the Mayor's Office of Neighborhoods is joining the feel-good chorus by posting photos of Hizzoner's tour of laughter and forgetting on Twitter:

"Creative visualization is my new plan to see that parking garage behind right field."

UPDATE: Give a sports reporter a hard hat, a yellow vest, and personal access to the Mayor and he is bound to go all giddy. The Mayor's Office and the Nashville Sounds have to pleased with this free advertising: "the new park appears to be the latest home run for the city." Is the Tennessean's Dave Ammenheuser bucking for a future promotional job with the team?

In a video connected to that editorial (because it is not good journalism), Frank Ward tells press, "Everything inside the ballpark will be ready for opening day." And conditions outside the ballpark? Fuhgeddaboudit!


UPDATE: At least some local journalists are giving us a fair shake after attending the Mayor's publicity tour of the stadium. Staff reporter E.J. Boyer at the Nashville Business Journal acknowledges the challenges facing this zooming construction project:

Another big question that has emerged this week is related to parking, a concern for the neighborhood, which has seen an influx of residents and visitors in recent years, crowding already narrow streets with cars. Dean's original proposal included a 1,000-spot garage to be funded by Metro but built by the state on state-owned land .... the garage won't be ready this season.

On Wednesday, Dean shifted responsibility for the garage's delay to the state, noting that on Metro's side, this is a fast-moving project. He added that his team has been working on a back-up plan for months, anticipating a delay, and that he hopes to reveal something in the next few weeks. Both Dean and Sounds owner Frank Ward said details are being worked out as to which party would pick up the tab for an alternative parking situation (which would most likely use shuttles to get fans to satellite parking locations) ....

The mayor's office will organize and host neighborhood meetings in the coming weeks to offer details on traffic patterns, noise and light pollution.

So maybe we will eventually get some answers to a laundry list of quality-of-life questions that should have been answered in the planning stages before approval was ever given to start construction.


UPDATE: So, the opening of the parking garage was never an expectation for opening day, huh? Then why are Metro officials acting like the news came out of left field?

"It really put us in a lurch to figure out where we're going to park people," Metro Sports Authority Executive Director Toby Compton said. "A. We wanted to figure out as much of a parking blend as possible. And the mayor was really insistent that there be a free component to the parking. That was big.

"To layer that, what we've also done is encourage people to think about mass transit options ...," he said. "Once they see this plan, they are not going to go north of Jefferson."

Metro powers-that-be have "cobbled" together a transit plan that includes free parking at Farmers' Market, state lots on James Robertson Parkway, and the "center piece," $5 parking at the Courthouse 7 or 8 blocks away from the new ballpark.

Will baseball fans buy the idea that no parking exists
above the map's top edge?

My first reaction is: why not free parking at the Courthouse? If I'm a commuting baseball fan and I have choice between parking in Germantown 2 or 3 blocks away for free or parking at the Courthouse farther away for fee, I would take the Germantown option. The fringe benefit of my choice is that I also get some exercise; health benefits accrue to the free Germantown option. Until the parking garage behind right field is built, there should be free parking for every fan in all of these lots south of Jefferson. Otherwise, Germantown and probably Salemtown are going to lose on-street parking. Universally free parking is the least the Mayor can do after blundering through the planning stages with no transit options ready-to-roll.


UPDATE: the primary reason that the ballpark legislation was shamelessly rammed through the process with little council debate and practically no citizen influence over planning is realized Opening Day, April 17. Hizzoner reserved the right to throw out the symbolic first pitch.

Mayor Karl Dean throws out the first pitch
(as celebrated by CM Jacobia Powell on her Twitter feed)

His work here is done.


UPDATE: It's Friday morning, April 24, 2015. I reserved seats in the ballpark weeks ago for my family to attend tonight's game. Paid for them and everything. I got an email mere hours before game time that our seats have been moved farther away from the action. Here is the relevant part of the email:

Dear fan,

This is not the kind of email we like to send. We’ve just been told that we have to move you to a new spot at your upcoming event, and we’ve been searching for new seats you’ll like just as much.

Nashville Sounds Vs. Oklahoma City Dodgers
First Tennessee Park
Friday, April 24, 2015 at 7:05PM

We’ve done everything we can to get you comparable seats!

If they keep treating me like this, I may have to re-evaluate my long-time status as a Sounds fan.


UPDATE: It's Monday morning, July 13, 2015. Have to say that I am hearing more and more complaints in the local community as the summer goes along that Sounds fans seem to have discovered all of the free streetside parking in Germantown and Salemtown. I cannot say I feel too much sympathy now, because the dire and bloated parking situation was predictable and preventable.

In the meantime, John Oliver's Last Week Tonight recently produced a brilliant piece on public taxes (in the form of municipal bonds, like those going to First Tennessee Park). The whole segment is wonderful and hilarious (according to one long-time stadium observer called it "more thoroughly fact-checked" than most news media coverage), but pay particular attention to the impact of one stadium on a neighborhood business, which locals who are "the regulars" abandon during games.





Hopefully, you also noticed that one big league owner refused to be transparent about his team's finances in exchange for public revenues "because that's just how it is" in league history. You may also recall that Metro's Finance Director made the exact same argument for committing municipal bonds to build First Tennessee Park, even though there are glaring instances in which that was not the way it was at all, and even though Nashville claims to want to be unlike any other city in the country. You cannot really be "It City" if you simply conform "because that's just how it is."

Reevaluating Salemtown's "Future Needs"

Eight years ago in the run-up to Metro Council elections I surveyed what were in my opinion Salemtown's "future needs" that deserved Metro government attention. I did not just pull these needs out of the air. I read planning documents that had been put together with the community feedback of residents of Salemtown. Then I picked ones that I thought were realistic and realizable in one or two council terms.

Now that we are in another council election year, I want to go back and reevaluate whether those needs have been addressed or not.

• 3rd Avenue greenway from Morgan Park to MetroCenter. In 2007, I wrote:
  

  [Metro] should address is conversion of the public property bordering the Treatment Plant to a landscaped greenway spur connecting to Morgan Park. That spur should include a decorative wall to hide the unsightly Plant from the view of the neighborhood. The strip of land running from Hume Street on the south to Coffee Street on the north is currently unlandscaped green space with a chain link fence and some trees and rose bushes.
  
  Currently, there is nothing about the green strip that attracts pedestrians strolling around the neighborhood. The rose bushes on the chain link fence seem almost like a token, half-hearted effort by Metro to beauty-up the strip. The space as it stands more designed to encourage people to hurry past in cars, because there is really nothing to see but a sewer plant.

  
  Nothing has changed along 3rd Avenue North, except the rose bushes are gone and there are more developments flying up on private property. The chain link fence still catches blowing trash. Metro has made no effort to overhaul and to reboot the public roadside strip into something people can use and enjoy. Metro has made no effort to block the blight and institutional ugliness of the water treatment facilities and their large grass-covered ash dumps blocking a clear view of the river. This area still has unrealized potential. The residents along 3rd deserve better.


• Renovation and buffering of the I-65 interface with Salemtown. In 2007, I wrote:

  we need a more vigorous and comprehensive effort by our next council member to pursue a wholesale renovation to the I-65 corridor through Salemtown that includes many of the community-sensitive compromises that TDOT made with West End-Hillsboro neighbors when they put I-440 in the 1980s.
  
  The Neighborhood Plan calls for noise walls and heavy landscaping along the perimeter of Salemtown. The plot of an interstate up against the walls and yards of urban neighborhoods without the addition of sound buffers is unconscionable. Our next council member needs to find ways to help us motivate TDOT to correct its obvious oversight.

  
  The state transportation department renovated the interchange between Rosa Parks Blvd. and I-65 in 2011, which improved the roads for auto traffic, but did little to benefit Salemtown. While TDOT did do away with concrete covered medians on Rosa Parks in favor of grass, they did not landscape them. Bushes and ornamental grasses could be useful obstacles for cars driving over the medians. TDOT cut down trees along the interstate, which served as partial buffers for road noise in Salemtown and then they refused to consider sound walls like those along I-440 in west Nashville. Instead, they threw the responsibility back on to Erica Gilmore, who did nothing to advance the cause of abating the roar of eighteen wheelers, despite the fact that in her 2007 campaign she acknowledged the problem. Salemtown still needs help with interstate buffering and better landscaping.


• Convert the Fehr school building back to a functioning public school. In 2007, I wrote:
  

  Salemtown is a neighborhood of families that will not stay that way very long unless some measures are taken to keep it from becoming a place super-saturated with amenities only for singles and young families with no children.
  
  One of the things that should happen to attract families with children to locate and to stay here is to replace a quality neighborhood public school here. However, there are no feeder schools proximate to the North End. Fehr School sits right in the middle of Salemtown. Decades ago it provided an education for neighborhood children, but it is used to provide other Metro Services now, having little to do with the neighborhood itself.

  
  Erica Gilmore and the Metro Historical Commission deserve credit for making progress on this future need. In 2011-2012 they picked up the cause that many of us had been working on for years: preserving the civil rights landmark from demolition. The Metro Action Commission, which was headquartered at the school, dug in its heels at times against historic overlay, but they finally gave in and Fehr is now protected. In 2011, MAC moved to a new headquarters downtown, which meant that folk seeking utility bill assistance from social services would no longer have to line up early on cold mornings in front of Fehr. Head Start currently occupies Fehr, which suits the educational purpose of the building. In the past few months, I have participated in constructive community discussions with Metro Public School officials, organized by current council candidate Freddie O'Connell, on converting Fehr back to a functioning neighborhood school. I am not sure that we are close to achieving that, yet. If it happens I would hate to see Fehr become a charter school. If anything it should be an unadulterated public school open to all children in Salemtown and its environs.


• A neighborhood-attuned council member. In 2007, I wrote:

  Salemtown, just like the rest of 19, is experiencing tremendous growth and redevelopment. The result is that we do have some greedy entrepreneurs who could care less about working with the neighborhood honestly for balanced growth in which everyone wins. Recently we found ourselves in the unenviable position of contending with both investors and Metro officials because growth is outstripping infrastructure in our neighborhood. The investors don't care because they only want to make money. Departmental officials only want to cover their butts. And many of our residents feel caught in the middle with no where to turn.
  
  It is not supposed to be like that. We are supposed to have an advocate on the Metro Council who not only listens to the contentions, but who is willing to get right down in the middle of the ruckus and help the sides reach a balanced and negotiated compromise. That council member should also be one to assist neighbors in consulting Metro Departments that are not always responsive or accountable. The Council Member should be leading the charge on updating our sometimes century-old infrastructure, while encouraging measured and responsible growth.

  
  Erica Gilmore has been considerably better than her predecessor on the Metro Council, Ludye Wallace. Where Ludye rarely showed an interest in Salemtown, CM Gilmore has attended our events and, especially early in her tenure, responded consistently. She went to bat for preserving the Fehr school building and many neighbors are grateful for her work on the conservation overlay. But I cannot give her much more than a solid "C" for advocacy for our neighborhood. She initially mishandled the conservation overlay process but then acquiesced to demands for community meetings. She was generally inconsistent with important community meetings. We were not always notified about meetings. And on the important question of a new minor league ballpark, she seemed prepared not to hold any meetings at all. When she did hold community meetings she ran them with a tight fist instead of encouraging open debate, negotiation and balance. The meetings were always framed as developers answering questions rather than getting feedback, and during one unpleasant confrontation with Salemtown Neighbors over rezoning, she seemed to question the association's legitimacy. We deserved better representation. I hope we get it in 2015.


• Extend the riverfront redevelopment transit loop into Salemtown. In 2007, I wrote:

  Salemtown proper is cut off from the Cumberland River by the Central Wastewater Treatment Plant. The Plant ... cuts our neighborhood off from direct contact with the river. So, the closest landing contacts our residents have with the river would be East Germantown and Downtown.
  
  So, it would make sense to extend the proposed transit loop past East Germantown to Salemtown and possibly MetroCenter. This could be done most easily by footpaths: extending the proposed greenway from East Germantown to the Cumberland River Levee Greenway in MetroCenter. But if a trolley run is planned for the Downtown to East Germantown leg, I hope that the future District 19 Council Member would look into the possibility of doing what he or she could to extend that trolley leg to a Salemtown transit stop (perhaps a greenway turnaround at the 3rd Avenue Treatment Center strip).

  
  So much water has passed under the bridge since I originally wrote this. I'm not even sure that the 2007 Riverfront Master Plan that included various landings applies. My point was that the trolley lines should stretch beyond downtown and East Nashville. More to today's context: with the opening of the new ballpark and the continuing densification of North Nashville, we are going to need more of the transit options that the east-west corridor currently enjoy. Trolleys running down 3rd between downtown and MetroCenter make sense more than ever. We got the extended greenway from Morgan Park to the Downtown Connector and Cumberland greenways. We have our walkable connection to the river that we did not in 2007, so if landings are still planned, we're in good shape. Mass transit still needs some work. We need pilot bus rapid transit projects for North Nashville. Light rail would surpass my wildest dreams (and is likely beyond what the next CM could accomplish). In Salemtown we need traffic and parking plans with street permits for residents, given the crush we will experience with the opening of First Tennessee Park. Metro seems to have failed us by not providing a comprehensive, smart northern transit plan (walking, biking and driving) with the building of the new ballpark.

Most of the changes that I argued we needed in 2007 still apply. Some have taken different forms over time. But most of upgrades Salemtown ought to have--many of which were expressed by previous community plans--are yet to be realized. I hope that the next council member from this district can help us realize them.

Want to kill a neighborhood's connection to a sporting event? This is how you do it

I've been following the Country Music Marathon up close for years now but April 2014 was the worst experience I've had on the race course here in North Nashville. Why? Because instead of shutting all of Rosa Parks Blvd. down for the marathon, race organizers opened half of it up to vehicular traffic, effectively cutting off the view of spectators as the runners went by.

When asked, a Metro Police officer responded that some developers of some of the construction projects in the area lobbied to keep long swaths of Rosa Parks open so that their trucks and workers could get in and out continue to gentrify on Saturday.

This was the view of the race and the traffic from just outside the Werthan Loft complex last April 26:

While not a marathoner myself, I maintain that marathons are unique in that they give neighborhoods the most direct, immediate contact with an organized sporting event that fields professional athletes. That's what I once enjoyed about the Country Music Marathon.

It is too bad that Metro government, real estate developers and the marathon's organizers had to spoil that direct contact and the view with auto traffic in 2014. Will it happen again this year? I guess if developers continue to hold sway here it will.

Salemtown needs to stay a place friendly to children

At the last Salemtown neighborhood association meeting, someone other than me (for which I am thankful) suggested to the officers that more social events be planned for families with children.

That request was made after the officers handed out a list of planned social events somewhat bereft of events explicitly child-friendly: a Mardi Gras Mixer, Pink Flamingo Happy Hour, Progressive Dinner, Chili Cook Off, Sip 'N Stroll. Those are all lovely events I'm sure, but they seem designed more for empty nesters or for parents with babysitters on constant call rather than for those of us who are committed to spending time with our children. I have experienced the Salemtown Halloween Block Party, which is apparently on for 2015, too. While it did not deter the number of kids that came through for candy, it was organized more as a street festival for the concert-and-beer crowd. The "kids tent" was a single table under a small awning.

I thought the officers could have taken the criticism more constructively than they did. They basically told the parent that she should participate in the social committee if she wanted to see more kid-friendly events because none of the members of the social committee have children. I believe that the suggestion was made with good intentions, but it did not come across as a constructive suggestion to me.

I should be perfectly honest and say that this was not the first time I have seen coolness expressed by empty nesters toward families with children in Salemtown. Across 10 years it has been a challenge at times and with some exceptions to convince them to either co-sponsor or join in more kid-friendly events. At times parents here have organized events on our own the absence of association sponsorship. We've had outings to parks and water parks. We've gone to get ice cream. We've attended puppet shows at the public library. In the fall we've gone to scout pumpkins at Farmers Market. One of our more popular regular events we organized apart from SNNA in the past was our "Kid Klatch" events. They were generally at Morgan Park, but one time we had a "Jane's Walk" to Bicentennial Mall ending with a picnic and kite-flying.

While SNNA may have a knack for planning adult-oriented events, I believe our association can do a better job of sponsoring and incorporating kid-friendly events. Here are a few suggestions:

• Rather than obliging parents to join a committee if they want to see events that their children can attend, invite the parents to meet with the social committee one-time or in a short series of coffees or lunches, kids in tow, so that the committee can get feedback for planning. Who knows, a couple of parents might take charge of their own suggestions to the committee. It is generally not effective or sensitive to tell people who suggest social events that they join the association's social committee. The reason we have committees is to divide the organizing labor and it becomes unrealistic to oblige every person who makes suggestions to join the committee. The committee would be come ridiculously and cumbersomely large under such logic. The social committee should field ideas on how to make their slate stronger, not dismiss those who cannot or will not serve.
• Put SNNA in front of the parade. If you don't produce social events for families with children, the parents are likely to go ahead and organize them without you. We did 3 years ago when we started to feel less support from the association. I have been to fewer and fewer Salemtown Neighbors social events since 2012, because frankly I want to spend my free time with family members. Until it sinks in at SNNA that they can actually get more Salemtown families to attend by attracting them with kid-friendly events, then I'll not likely attend many adult-oriented ones as I have in the distant past. To put it more positively: find events that parents are already planning and ask if the association can do anything to assist. Get SNNA's name on the event. What can it hurt?
• Use child-friendly social events as a tool to expand membership. I've lived here 10 years. Salemtown, unlike Germantown, has always had bunches of kids around the neighborhood. It is true now, more than ever. Daily in warmer weather I see young couples walking by with strollers. At times I wonder if we are undergoing a baby boom. Other parents on my block have play days for the kids that their kids go to school with. SNNA has to make more of an effort to attract these families and keep them in Salemtown. No one is asking empty nesters to open up their homes for our kids to barrel around their fragile decorations. But SNNA officers need to find a way to reach out to families with children, if for no other reason that it makes the association stronger and more diverse.
• Promote diversity. An urban neighborhood is generationally diverse when it has children as well as young adults, retirees, and middle aged-empty nesters. If Salemtown were a neighborhood exclusively dominated by empty nesters, it would be a tedious and boring place. I'm speaking as a person who did not have his first child until the age of 29; as one who will be an empty-nester once again in less than a decade. Any neighborhood worth its salt needs the presence of some children for enrichment.
• Express mutual interest by showing up once in a while. I have attended events in Salemtown to celebrate someone's promotion, birthday, engagement, marriage, move-in, move-out and a host of other special occasions that were important for me to support. On the other side of the ledger, I don't recall empty nesters showing up to one of my kid's basketball games or her art shows or her theater performances. I am not expressing resentment in that statement. I'm merely pointing out that one hand washes the other. It is unrealistic to expect parents to continue to find a babysitter to celebrate your milestones when you won't calendar and attend to those of their children. Mutuality, by definition, goes both ways.

I offer these suggestions in a spirit of engagement, because I firmly believe in enhancing the quality of life in Salemtown. Yes, our sociality is enhanced by Mardi Gras mixers, but it is also enhanced by puppet shows.

Dealing with new ballparks as "the sporting arm of the real estate business"

First Tennessee Park luxury

I know that some conservatives (by "some," I mean "very few") take issue with subsidizing pro sports venues period. I do not take issue with the idea of subsidizing ballparks. What I have tried to get across in my reflections on ballpark subsidies is that if a government by the people is going to give private developers and team owners millions for new sports parks, then those parks better have public access and common goods commensurate with the free revenues the sports barons enjoy.

In most cases, and specifically in the case of the new First Tennessee Park for the Nashville Sounds, they do not. The Sounds owners are playing up their services for Nashville's rich: luxury suites, "personal" servers, the "private" club level, and "exclusive access" bars. Even the best field level seats are set at a luxury price and emphasize the networking executives can do.

First Tennessee Park luxury

Private, exclusive access? Funny, but I thought such access was what any ticket, regardless of price, guaranteed you. The idea that seats purchased at the club level with luxury boxes are more private than the purchased seats farthest away from home plate strikes me as redundant, unless by "private" the Sounds owners are referring to activity they hope to shield from transparency to other ticket buyers. I am keeping in mind that the property is owned by Metro, leased by the baseball club and is technically public.

A Wisconsin professor (who had conducted research on the Sounds old parent club, the Milwaukee Brewers) explains that the sports culture is completely different than it was a half a century ago when elites rubbed elbows at professional sporting events with working class people.

First Tennessee Park luxury

The problem Sean Dinces sees it that while we continue to expect more public tax dollars to be doled out for ballparks and stadiums, we also watch team owners accept that money as entitlement as they systematically exclude most of the taxpayers from whence the money comes. The problem starts with luxury suites, which "make fans inside them feel superior and those on the outside feel inferior."

First Tennessee Park luxury

He argues that liberals need to step up their game:

rather than bringing residents together, and rather than functioning as legitimate public goods, the current generation of publicly funded stadiums systematically exclude an unprecedented percentage of American sports fans.

Of course, decisively rebuking the rhetoric of teams and leagues will not, in and of itself, solve the problem. This is especially true in a day and age when decisions about stadium subsidies have been largely removed from the democratic process, and when franchises continue to wield threats of relocation like a sword above the heads of residents and municipal officials. Nevertheless, reshaping fans’ consciousness is a necessary starting point.

Ideally, fans should see an intractable antagonism between the potential of spectator sport as a community asset and its current role as a venue for taxpayer-funded consumption by a handful of urban elites. Critics must also stress that, despite what leagues want us to believe, fandom is not necessarily contingent on having a stadium — or even a team, for that matter — close by, especially when attending actual games is unrealistic.

In the short term, transforming this consciousness raising into effective resistance against the sporting arm of the real estate business requires wresting fiscal control away from politicians competing to offer teams ever greater sums of state, county, and city money. This means making anti-stadium-subsidy campaigns part of bigger struggles for social justice in cities, like the rise of a new radical unionism in places like Chicago or recent electoral successes by socialists in urban centers, such as Seattle.

The games will go on even if the handouts do not.

I have demonstrated on this blog over and over that throughout the planning and building of a new ballpark in the North Capitol area, people have been excluded from the political process by the Mayor, the Metro Council, Metro planners and the Sounds ownership. Just take a look at my past posts on the subject. Liberals in Nashville have failed to step up their game when it comes to challenging the logic that urban elites have exclusive rights to influence and benefits in what is a process and a real estate deal that was funded overwhelming by tax dollars that we have paid.

First Tennessee Park luxury

In my opinion, unless there is some liberal groundswell to challenge business as usual in these deals that serve "the sporting arm of the real estate business," we are only going to watch more and more people excluded from public enjoyment of the local professional sports scene. The next ones in line to get the shaft are the local baseball fans, many of whom have already been grumbling about the higher prices of Sounds' season tickets. Given that their tax dollars are supporting an ownership group that drives up prices regardless of the latter's windfall wealth, their grumbling is justified.


UPDATE: In May 2015, the Sounds engaged in a league contest to promote the "Best Seat in the House" in the minors. What seat did they nominate for best seat to vote for? Seats that most of us will never be able to sit in: the "Field Level Suites," which the club calls their "most luxurious and exclusive entertainment area."

The irony is thick in this one. Proverbial beauty contests depend on popular votes. To be popular means to appeal to the masses, not the elites. Yet, only elite groups of people can afford to sit in the ballpark's "most luxurious and exclusive" seats. If you're one of the $9.00 ticket holders on the left field berm, how is voting for the Field Level Suites in any way appealing to you?

Salemtown Neighbors Neighborhood Association is 10 years old this month

Around this time 10 years ago a dozen or so Salemtown residents hatched plans to form the neighborhood's first association. In late February 2005 we met for the first time at Morgan Park Community Center with Metro Planning officials and we were off on this trek.

There has not been much pomp and circumstance so far in 2015 over this important Salemtown anniversary, but those of us who have been here from the beginning deeply understand the hard work that went into the formation, organization and growth of SNNA.

I am proud to have been a part of that work. Happy 10th, SNNA.

More broken promises at the Tennessean

Last June, the Tennessean made a concession to Metro Council (in exchange for defeating an ordinance that would have regulated delivery of their unsubscribed "free" editions) that employees from the newspapers' offices would do "ride arounds" with the delivery help and pick up unclaimed papers littering sidewalks and streets. The Tennessean is not keeping its promise in Salemtown.

I took the photo below this morning near my house. The rolled-up, plastic-packaged Tennessean at the foot of the steps in the background is yesterday's edition. The rolled-up, plastic-packaged Tennessean at the curb in the foreground was delivered on December 24, 2014.

The Tennessean is not keeping its promises to Metro Council. CM Megan Barry championed the defeat of litter regulations in our neighborhoods last June by describing the concession of the Tennessean to reclaim their unclaimed papers as a "good thing." This is the same Megan Barry who is running for mayor this year promising "not to lose sight" of neighborhoods by permitting economic activity to "degrade quality of life."

Well, as you can see, the Tennessean continues its quest to make more money by littering my neighborhood's public spaces with unsolicited advertising. Litter degrades Salemtown's quality of life.

Promises broken by the news corporation. Promises broken by the corporation's political patrons on the Metro Council. Promises broken all around.

Communication fail

If you, like me, got Erica Gilmore's only notification of the community meeting on a Salemtown SP this afternoon you may be scratching your head over her late-breaking communication habits. If you, unlike me, did not know about today's meeting because you are not a member of Salemtown Neighbors, then you should know that you have less than two hours to get ready for the meeting:

This postcard is very misleading about the zone change request. The developers are not only responsible for answering questions about this rezoning request. An SP requires them to get community feedback in order to gain community support for their request.

Not only is this communication late in the mail (postdated January 23), but it is deceptive in content.

Is the Farmers' Market growing more exclusive by jettisoning the flea market?

The Piraeus, home of ancient Greek schlock

In Plato's Republic, Socrates goes from Athens to the Piraeus, a port side passage where the masses thronged. He went down from high society to the places of parades and cheap entertainment. More importantly, it was the place of commoners, outsiders and those considered barbarians. From Plato:

I went down yesterday to the Piraeus with Glaucon the son of Ariston, that I might offer up my prayers to the goddess; and also because I wanted to see in what manner they would celebrate the festival, which was a new thing. I was delighted with the procession of the inhabitants; but that of the Thracians was equally, if not more, beautiful.

The Piraeus was a liminal space for a free philosopher of Athens: a threshold out of high society to the mundane world of people of much lower status. If Athens was the one, then the Piraeus was the many.

The Piraeus leaped to mind when I read the news that the North Capitol area Farmers' Market is now terminating its flea market in favor of what sound like bigger ticket vendors more stringently selected:

After spending more than a year visiting and collaborating with other successful markets across the country, the staff has developed a new system of standards that will ensure that shoppers will know the source of all items sold in the market and that the vendors will have been involved in the creation of their products.

“There are other places to go if you want a flea market experience,” says NFM Executive Director Tasha Kennard. "We recognized that in order to be the best market we can be we have to do things differently. The actions of the staff and the board show our commitment to and appreciation of the value of local farmers and products.”

What other flea markets exist within walking distance of North Capitol neighborhoods that allow the experience of the Farmers' Market adjoined by a great public park like Bicentennial Mall? I do not know of any. The article goes on to say that Farmers' Market flea market vendors are to be exiled to the Fairgrounds in south Nashville. Is a gated-community consciousness growing in North Nashville?

I'm not a buyer of kitsch, but I recognize that there is a reason it exists. It is a form of cheap art or expression that those middle-class-and-below can afford without a line of credit. Will those same commoners still be able to enter the Farmers' Market and browse with the idea of buying? It does not sound like it. A member of Urban Planet criticizes the move:

I agree that the produce and flowers should be local, but I disagree with kicking Flea Market vendors out. Growing up in the area - before it was hip and cool - the flea market has always been a part of the Nashville Farmers Market, even when it was on the other end of Bicentennial in open air tents. If the vendors pay their rent and don't sell knock off items, why should they have to move. I love going to the Asian couple tha has the $1 bins of little household items and wudknots. Many of these people make their livelihood at the Flea Market and displacing them because of a "few" that do not like cheaply made items is a shame. That's what a Flea Market is - I would rather have these vendors at a facility where they pay montly rent/taxes, than to have them posted up on the side of a road or in vacant lot selling their items, because that is what's going to happen.

So the Market will be displacing 50+ vendors in the flea market for a handful of "artisan" vendors that will sell $10 handmade soap, $20 soy made candles, and $30 hand-made scarfs. I'm all for supporting local-made products, but not everyone likes those type of things. Being that the market is located in a historically and predominantly black zip code, I would think they would want to cater to all residents - not just the folks in the new apartments, condos, and million dollar shotgun houses.

Their is plenty of space at the facility for everyone to coexist. They have already gone up on their rents three-fold now I guess this the last straw to kick them out [SIC].

I understand why many gentrifiers look down their noses at cheap tacky stuff that has been sold in the same place for decades, but I have no problem with flea markets because there are common goods that are higher than stuffy taste or stiff-necked wealth. Inclusiveness and respect are two such common goods.

What stands out to me is that First Tennessee Park, the Nashville Sounds' new ballpark, is specifically mentioned as a catalyst changes at the Farmers' Market. Some of us have warned that the new ballpark may not have the desired effect of growth in existing Jefferson Street businesses. Instead, it may leverage relocation of larger businesses that drive out the smaller ones. Is that good? It depends on what your expectations are. The Farmers' Market is like canary in a coal mine on that score.

Make no mistake: the Farmers' Market is a Metro owned public space. Make no mistake: if the Farmers' Market discourages buyers who cannot afford handmade artisan crafts, they will not visit the Farmers' Market, which will make it a less diverse place. Make no mistake: a space that no longer welcomes diversity, including class diversity, is no longer legitimately public.

I've been a neighbor of and a regular customer at the Farmers' Market for a decade since moving to Salemtown. I did not patronize the flea market, but I also never saw the need for it to go away. I do not understand why later arrivals (and apparently a neighborhood association) do.

By the way, I would be deliriously pleased if the Farmers' Market could certify that all of its produce comes from local, organic, family farms (like those in Scottsboro/Bells Bend) and not from Tennessee's powerful agribusiness plantations. I'm not deluded enough to believe that the schlock-haters are clamoring for a bridge that far. They seem satisfied enough with elbowing out the riff raff.


Disclaimer and full disclosure: This blog has been a donor to past efforts to preserve and to develop the Farmers' Market.

Exceptionally large, 20-unit Salemtown development deferred for community meeting

The "Specific Plan" rezoning requests are now flying into Salemtown, with new ones barreling down the pike persistently, enough to make your head spin. Most of the "SPs" propose to expand the number of units currently existing on the properties, which is consistent with the priorities of planners (who strive to increase density) and those of developers (who strive to wring out every last drop of value that they claim to add to properties). Former Metro Council member Roy Dale has been the applicant of a number of recent rezoning requests; a sweet parlay on his part.

One development about which I have waved red flags early on is "The Row at 6th & Garfield." The plan is to demolish 8 existing units across 5 plots and infill 20 new ones. The Salemtown neighborhood association informed me before the plan came before the Planning Commission on January 8 that the developers were seeking to defer in order to hold community meetings on the project. The association gives no public indication that I can see (I am a member) that they have concerns about the project. The Planning Department's recommendation reflects that deferral:

Project No. Zone Change 2015SP-001-001
Project Name The Row at 6th & Garfield

Requested by Dale and Associates, applicant; Bryan Development, LLC, owner.

Staff Reviewer Birkeland
Staff Recommendation Defer indefinitely.
_____________________________________________________
APPLICANT REQUEST
Zone change to permit twenty multi-family units.

Preliminary SP
A request to rezone from One and Two-Family Residential (R6) to Specific Plan-Residential (SP-R) zoning for properties located at 1700, 1702, 1706, 1710 and 1712 6th Avenue North, at the northeast corner of 6th Avenue North and Garfield Street, (1.01 acres), to permit up to 20 multifamily dwelling units

Existing Zoning
One and Two-Family Residential (R6) requires a minimum 6,000 square foot lot and is intended for single-family dwellings and duplexes at an overall density of 7.71 dwelling units per acre including 25 percent duplex lots. R6 would permit a maximum of 7 lots with 1 duplex lot for a total of 9 units.

Proposed Zoning
Specific Plan-Residential (SP-R) is a zoning district category that provides for additional flexibility of design, including the relationship of streets to buildings, to provide the ability to implement the specific details of the General Plan. This Specific Plan includes attached residential buildings.

STAFF RECOMMENDATION
Staff recommends an indefinite deferral at the request of the applicant.

The Planning Commission did indeed approve the deferral two weeks ago.

This week the neighborhood association sent out announcement of its next business meeting, Monday, January 26 (6:00p). That agenda included the item, "Developer Presentations (30 min.) [held jointly with Councilperson Gilmore]." No other details were listed and there is no clarification announced by Salemtown Neighbors, but I assume that the SP request for The Row at 6th and Garfield is to be addressed. It is not easy to see where SNNA's executive board stands on this.

Chances are, if Roy Dale is present on Monday, he will also be discussing the SP request at 4th Av N and Garfield (2015SP-002-001) which was approved by the Planning Commission on the January 8 consent agenda without any discussion by the commissioners. Even with that approval I am unaware of any community meetings having been held on this plan by developers. It would demolish 6 units and build 8. But again, specific plans require allowance of community input before final approval. The public hearing has not been held by Metro Planning, yet so there is still time to slow this down if community discussion does not happen at the association meeting on Monday. I have received no notifications from CM Erica Gilmore about upcoming community meetings on rezoning. I certainly hope she is doing her due diligence on these rezoning requests.

Here is the planning staff's recommendation for the 4th and Garfield plan:

STAFF RECOMMENDATION
Staff recommends approval with conditions and disapproval without all conditions.

CONDITIONS

1. Uses within the SP shall be limited to a maximum of 8 residential units.
2. If a development standard, not including permitted uses, is absent from the SP plan and/or Council approval, the property shall be subject to the standards, regulations and requirements of the RM20-A zoning district as of the date of the applicable request or application. Uses are limited as described in the Council ordinance.
3. The final site plan shall include architectural elevations showing raised foundations of 18-36” for residential buildings.
4. A corrected copy of the preliminary SP plan incorporating the conditions of approval by Metro Council shall be provided to the Planning Department prior to or with final site plan application.
5. Minor modifications to the preliminary SP plan may be approved by the Planning Commission or its designee based upon final architectural, engineering or site design and actual site conditions. All modifications shall be consistent with the principles and further the objectives of the approved plan. Modifications shall not be permitted, except through an ordinance approved by Metro Council that increase the permitted density or floor area, add uses not otherwise permitted, eliminate specific conditions or requirements contained in the plan as adopted through this enacting ordinance, or add vehicular access points not currently present or approved.
6. The requirements of the Metro Fire Marshal’s Office for emergency vehicle access and adequate water supply for fire protection must be met prior to the issuance of any building permits.

Given the rapid transition Salemtown is currently experiencing, we really do have to keep our eye on the ball. The sheer volume of rezoning requests in a short period of time could tip it out-of-hand completely if we are not vigilant.


UPDATE: both properties did come up for discussion and questions at the January SNNA business meeting. Developers of The Row at 6th and Garfield said that they plan to defer the proposal to the end of February. They also emphasized to those in attendance that SNNA could have some influence over the direction of this project, which is a hopeful sign as long as the association officers encourage input from members. I will post more information on the site plan here soon.

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.

Two big rezoning plans proposed for Salemtown up for public hearings

Developer's plan for 1604 6th Av N

Public hearings, whether in Metro Council or in Planning Commission, are rare opportunities for neighborhoods to organize and express their will upon Metro government as to developers intentions.

There are two such chances next week:

• Tuesday, January 6, 2015: the Metro Council holds a public hearing on the proposal for 1604 6th Av N (the "No Dogs House"). The developer met with the Salemtown association several weeks ago to talk about the concept and take feedback. The council meeting starts at 6:30.
• Thursday, January 8, 2015: the Planning Commission holds a public hearing on the sprawling proposal for The Row at 6th & Garfield, which would tear down 8 units and replace them with 20. The developer has NOT met with the Salemtown association even though he is seeking a "specific plan," which requires community input. The association has not announced any community meetings. The planning commission meeting starts at 4:00, which of course is inconvenient for many working families to attend.

I am particularly concerned with the lack of community contact in the latter proposal, given the huge impact it will make.


UPDATE: the "No Dogs House" rezoning plan was approved on public hearing on January 6 with no one speaking in opposition to it. It then sailed easily through final approval on January 20 and awaits the Mayor's signature.

RIP, Dix

We lost a cherished companion last night. She had been in Salemtown almost as long as we have and she was a source of great joy to our family. Good-bye, loyal friend.

I asked the Tennessean to stop throwing papers at our house. They did it anyway. On Christmas Eve.

Back in early November, I pointed out to our council member at-Large Megan Barry that the local daily newspaper was not ending littering Salemtown with its advertisements each Wednesday as she suggested they would back in June. The Tennessean social media person responded with contact info to stop delivery.

Despite my cynicism (expressed above) that the Tennessean would actually change their established pattern of ignoring my stop-delivery requests, I emailed the "tmc" account provided and asked them to stop Wednesday delivery.

For my diligence, this morning we received another unwelcome gift from a Tennessean delivery drone: the plastic-wrapped "free" Wednesday advertising edition of the Tennessean.

As the littering of Salemtown continues without any options to stop it, thanks to Metro Council elves, I recall CM Barry's argument on a warm June night for leaving the Tennessean alone to do what it wills:

The conversation [about controlling the unsolicited litter dumps in neighborhoods] has led to some really good things that the Tennessean is doing .... tonight I am going to go ahead and say, “Let’s just put this to rest” and I’m going to vote against [stopping unwelcome litter in neighborhoods].

What Megan Barry helped put to rest last June was any chance you and I have of controlling a vast polluting, dead-tree corporation that is more of an advertising agency than a news source. Is it because the Tennessean stands to provide her mayoral campaign with the kind of advertising (masquerading as journalism) she could not buy? That I cannot say for sure, although it stands to reason that not rocking the boat minimizes her risk of media hits and broadsides.

However, only an Orwellian can argue that dumping dozens of rolls of unwanted paper within a community trying to keep its streets cleaned up is a "good thing."

Are we close enough to Nashville's new ballpark to spot the manure?

Aaron Gordon at Vice Sports engages in a scathing open dialogue with a New York Times article regarding Washington, DC's plan to subsidize a new soccer stadium for its pro-team. While Gordon's entire piece is worthy of your time and attention, I wanted to comment on his observations about the lack of promised economic development that was to come with the opening six years ago of a new professional baseball park.

It seems relevant to North Nashville's close proximity to the new Nashville Sounds' home, First Tennessee Park, which is promised to bring dramatic economic development to the Jefferson Street corridor and the nearby neighborhoods. NYT comments are in bold; Gordon's replies are unbolded:

City leaders say the 20,000-seat stadium will serve as a catalyst for economic development for this area of southwest Washington, the way that Nationals Park, home of the Washington Nationals baseball team, did for its formerly stagnant neighborhood just a few blocks north and east.

Amazingly, the second half of this sentence directly contradicts the first. It takes 12 minutes to walk from Nationals Park to the very tip of Buzzard Point. If Nationals Park—which cost $700 million of taxpayer money—was such a catalyst for economic development, why do they need to build another nine-figure stadium a few blocks away?

Maybe because it didn't revitalize anything.

This has been the case in other Washington neighborhoods after the city voted to approve major new public venues...

Oh, cool! I mean, if it's worked before...

...including the Verizon Center, home to the N.B.A.'s Wizards and the N.H.L.'s Capitals since 1997;...

That was privately funded by then-owner Abe Polin, so not really a public investment! OK, what else?

...and the 2.3 million-square-foot Walter E. Washington Convention Center, completed in 2003, in revitalized Mount Vernon Square.

Wait, seriously?

I lived in the DC area for eight years, including a year and a half in Shaw, which lies just north of Mount Vernon. The above sentiment about Mount Vernon being "revitalized" is the kind of buried horseshit you can only spot if you're close enough to smell it.

Granted, the cost of the DC baseball stadium in taxpayer money was about 10 times what First Tennessee Park is going to cost Nashvillians in taxes. The flip side of that: the logic unfolds that the economic development in DC communities should proportionately be 10 times what was promised for North Nashville neighborhoods.

However, nearby DC neighborhoods got zilch.

Let's focus on the DC developer's comment that local lawmakers may have rigged expectations too high in order to give the ballpark project momentum. Some of us have been shouting that from jump with Nashville's ballpark. But to the point: they rationalized after the damage was done by minimizing the impact of the new ballpark, saying it is "just a very small piece" of development in the neighborhoods. Will First Tennessee ballpark developers and team owners thusly walk back their spin in the coming years? Will they be minimizing the claims Hizzoner kept making in late 2013 about how a new ballpark will create Jeff St. "revival"?

(If they're honest, they'll acknowledge that our neighborhoods were developing and gentrifying well before a new ballpark rose to the level of anything above a nostalgic pipe dream).

Like DC, Nashville has a convention center that is not performing to the results promised. Nashville is getting half the projected hotel nights, and no doubt tourists will compete for parking spaces downtown with minor league baseball fans for parking spaces during the summer (Metro officials said they hope Sounds fans use shrinking downtown parking opportunities). When they aren't competing downtown they will be choking on-street parking in Germantown, Hope Gardens and Salemtown.

The logic of overrated convention centers also applies to subsidized ballparks:

The whole process is basically maneuvered by the business community — banks, hotels, retailers, construction industries, others who will profit while the city loses .... Cities’ corporate movers and shakers long ago figured out how to get their new centers or expansions without the voters having a say.

The rising $70,000,000 Nashville is giving minor league team owner Frank Ward does one thing above all: it minimizes his family's risk and it maximizes inflated income from ticket and merchandising sales. It does so at our expense, even though our own elected officials allowed practically no influence over the deal. In particular it allows Mr. Ward to sell luxury boxes to rich people from Brentwood and Williamson County who would be more likely to snap up real estate investments in our urban core neighborhoods than to patronize and to put their cash in the pockets of the locally owned businesses up and down Jefferson Street.





Again, regular make-ends-meet taxpayers are the losers in this scenario, because economic benefits pad the pocketbooks of the people privately invested in the ballpark and other nearby properties. The latter need no financial assistance. Little will come back to us regardless of whether this particular ballpark bucks the trend and the science that indicate that any economic impact of sports venues is negligible and fabricated.

I am still waiting for someone to stop cheerleading and to begin explaining to me logically how the ballpark makes our lives cumulatively better in Salemtown when the costs are frankly and fearlessly considered.

4th Av N Specific Plan passes muster with Planning Commission on consent agenda

While the Planning Commission still has to hold a public hearing on the SP plan slated for 1614/1616 4th Av N, they gave preliminary unanimous approval last week for via their consent agenda (which is a slate of proposals voted on as a whole; unless individual plans are pulled off the consent agenda, they are voted on without discussion). If the plan survives the public hearing stage and gets final approval from the commission, it will go to Metro Council as recommended by planning and only needing a simple majority for council approval.

There are several conditions this plan has to meet, according to the Planning Department, including fire code requirements and a Public Works requirement to remove striping from parking spaces in the row. Here is Planning's recommendation:

STAFF RECOMMENDATION
Staff recommends approval with conditions and disapproval without all conditions as it is consistent with the North Nashville Community plan and meets several critical planning goals.

CONDITIONS
1. Use in the SP is limited to up to 7 residential units.
2. For any development standards, regulations and requirements not specifically shown on the SP plan and/or included as a condition of Council approval, the property shall be subject to the standards, regulations and requirements of the RM15 zoning district as of the date of the applicable request or application.
3. Minor modifications to the preliminary SP plan may be approved by the Planning Commission or its designee based upon final architectural, engineering or site design and actual site conditions. All modifications shall be consistent with the principles and further the objectives of the approved plan. Modifications shall not be permitted, except through an ordinance approved by Metro Council that increase the permitted density or floor area, add uses not otherwise permitted, eliminate specific conditions or requirements contained in the plan as adopted through this enacting ordinance.
4. The requirements of the Metro Fire Marshal’s Office for emergency vehicle access and adequate water supply for fire protection must be met prior to the issuance of any building permits.

If you want to read the rest of their analysis, it starts on page 74 here.

I have not perceived any changes that Salemtown Neighbors Neighborhood Association is asking developers to make, so I would be surprised if anyone shows up at the public hearing to address the plan. The developers met with the association in October. Barring any surprises, this plan will probably breeze through the commission and Metro Council.