On the question of saving Salemtown's trees

2008 wind-related tree damage at 5th and Garfield

On Friday I made the observation that old growth trees falling in extreme weather like we continue to have over the past few years in North Nashville has become almost common place. After high winds blow through, I usually hike around the hood with my camera because I can generally find damage here and there. The photos posted here show some of the disaster people have experienced due to weak trees and strong storms. We have had arborists from several local tree companies in to diagnose diseased trees and to clean up others knocked down in storms. I have yet to meet one who is optimistic about the chances of the neighborhood's oldest trees.

May 2011 7th Avenue storm damage

I found out that one developer, Jim Creason, has been catching heat from some of the residents here about old growth trees he cut down at his development at 5th and Garfield. I have yet to find a developer who when faced with large trees on their lots has not opted to cut them down. I am rarely accused of supporting developers, but in the event I would be, let me start by saying that any responsible developer would ask professional arborists to evaluate the health and condition of old growth trees on their property before cutting some of them down.

Morgan Park tree damage

As best I can tell, that rarely occurs. Developers usually take down whatever they want to. But responsible developers should try to save every part of the healthy canopy that they can. If saving their trees is beyond hope, they should broadcast the arborists' conclusions to concerned neighbors.

Undated S-town wind damage

As I understand it, Jim did have a Metro arborist in to evaluate the large trees on his lot. That professional told Jim that the trees were beyond saving. He tells me that it was not good enough for neighbors who kept on him to keep the trees up even though he risked damage to his buildings in extreme weather. It seems to me that concerned neighbors should bring in their own arborists to evaluate the trees if they are not happy with the justifications a developer gives. But arguing that trees should be kept up just because there is something unquestionably good about trees without regard to their condition and risk of falling is naive.

May 2011 6th Avenue wind damage

While watching a large tree cut down is a harsh reality to accept, it is not unreasonable for neighbors to request that developers plant a hardy, indigenous tree for every sick and weakened tree that they feel led to take down. The best developers will acknowledge their responsibility, even in higher density urban builds, to go the extra mile to fill in the holes in the neighborhood canopy. When Jim told me about this altercation with others, I asked all of these questions about him fulfilling his responsibilities, and he addressed my concerns to my satisfaction. A few days after our discussion the large tree caddy-corner to Jim's 5th and Garfield property blew down on a home. I don't believe that trees coming down justify any developer's clear-cutting property, but I do think if the nice old tree had been judged to be ill or frail by an arborist, I would certainly understand the owner taking it down.

March 2011 storm-generated tree damage to our home

And I say that as a property owner who last year had similar damage to my home by a storm-tossed old growth tree that once had been an attractive edition to our yard. Sure it cost us thousands to repair our house, our fence and our back yard, but we were lucky that no one was hurt by the disaster. I would like to save all of the healthy trees that we can, but not any cost to our personal lives. We will continue to have pros evaluate the health of our large trees, but whenever we have an old tree that literally hangs over us waiting for the next strong gale to fall, we will take it down without any apologies to anyone else for our prudence. Moreover, we will replace what we take out with better trees. I expect no less or no more from developers.

We replaced our weak, fallen hackberry with
a hardier pin oak and a rain garden 

UPDATE: Sunday night's round of storms over North Nashville brought down another tree. Ostensible roof damage to a home on 5th Avenue near Garfield, and perhaps minor damage to a car parked in the street in front:

Salemtown's latest storm damage

It seems like every time high wind comes through Salemtown we lose some old growth trees. Yesterday's gust front was no different. The base of an old maple tree at 5th and Garfield was shattered and the tree fell into a neighbor's house damaging at least a balcony and the porch railing. No one was hurt and my neighbor is out of town although I did email him this morning.

We had such damage in 2011 due to high winds and, according to arborists with whom I've spoken, chronic lack of rain that has weakened the canopy.

Mafiosi a Mafiaoza's

Boss Tweed, an American symbol
of machine politics.

The day before yesterday we stopped off at Mafiaoza's for pizza on our way to the Sounds baseball game and Independence Day fireworks show. During our dinner, we noticed that Mayor Karl Dean entered and joined a table of around 8 to 10 others we could not see from our table. We finished our meal and exited for the short drive to Greer Stadium. Curious myself but trying not to be to conspicuous as I left, I glanced around the table and spotted principals from the pro-Dean lobby group, "Moving Nashville Forward", including former Council Member Erik Cole and former Stand for Children staffer Francie Hunt.

Despite insinuations that Moving Nashville Forward was a grassroots effort of support for the Mayor's tax increases bubbling up from the community, I've tended to believe that they are a more cosmetic attempt to project the Dean Machine (which includes the Nashville Chamber of Commerce in my book) agenda as organic and hyper-local. I also concluded that MNF is an astroturf attempt to influence public opinion top-down without the appearance that the branding is engineered like a campaign. The endgame: clear any popular brush that might inconvenience Hizzoner.

The fact that Karl Dean was out celebrating with Moving Nashville Forward came as no surprise to me. Seeing the group festively together after easy passage of the property tax increase also seemed natural to me. Karl Dean should be breaking bread and giving thanks with the minions. The machine of Nashville politics is chugging along nicely for the man who aspires to offices higher than Mayor.

More media marketing of gentrification

Developers and real estate pros tend to use the Tennessean to market the communities they build in as the "next big thing" in Nashville to maximize their revenue potential. The Tennessean went along last January in a piece on Salemtown's latest "pioneer" class. Developers pitched our neighborhood as the "next hot spot," as a number had done before.

Six short months later, it's Cleveland Park that the Tennessean is reporting as the next "it" neighborhood boosted by the branding efforts of real estate pros. But at least the July 1 piece on our East Nashville neighbor is not a one-sided shill piece prompted by pro-development representatives as it was in Salemtown. Reporter Nancy DeVille at least got the more moderating views of Cleveland Park association leaders, who are concerned about the impact of unchecked, unreflective gentrification on long-time residents:

While many believe gentrification has revitalized several Nashville neighborhoods, Cleveland Park community leaders want to avoid it. Ben Jordan, co-chair of the Cleveland Park Neighborhood Association, says it forces some residents out who can’t pay the higher rents or property taxes.

“We have been very sensitive about things that would create an environment for gentrification, one being historic overlays that could create a hardship on the people that have been here a long time,” he said.

Salemtown: no longer the next big thing Nashville? This may be sacrilege to developers, but I personally don't care whether it is the next big thing. Just like they don't always care about the exclusive effects of unsmart growth in neighborhoods. Besides, every time the Tennessean declares an urban neighborhood the next hot spot, I grow more jaded about the marketing ploys that reduce us to lemmings and lab rats.

Update: Germantown Commons cohousing group sets timeline for upcoming meetings

The new cohousing project on 5th Av N has a name, Germantown Commons and they appear to have reserved a new domain for their website. In the meantime, the Germantown cohousing website has a timeline that includes rapidly approaching meetings:

COMMON HOUSE WORKSHOP – 7/18-20
Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, July 18-20 2012, 6pm – 9pm

Wednesday: Open Meeting
Common House Presentation | Free Event
Hatcher & Fell Photography Studio
1208 7th Avenue North
Nashville 37208

Thursday, Friday: Planning Meetings
Neighborhood Center Resource Center
1312 3rd Avenue North
Nashville 37208


Jump in and explore if this community is right for you. The group will establish the goals and priorities for the Common House as well as the specific activities to take place there. The purpose of this programming workshop is to establish specific agreed-upon guidelines that will be included as the basis for the design criteria for individual spaces within the building. The program will be used to develop schematic floor plans and elevations for the Common House.

Recommended Workshop Fee: $1,000
Deadline for Reservation: July 15
(Your workshop fee goes toward home equity and is matched with an additional $1,000 discount to give you a total benefit of $2,000 in your home.)

Chicagoland's cautionary tale

In a Chicago suburb, the result of a pro sports team prowling for taxpayers to bankroll a new stadium and opportunistic politicians quick to make promises they cannot keep:

This for a deal that — initially, at least — looked like it might actually work out for the town of Bridgeview, since taxpayers' $100 million in stadium bonds were supposed to be paid off by stadium revenues. Except that, according to the Tribune, "the final deal called for much of the revenue from soccer games to go to the Chicago Fire, leaving Bridgeview with as much as a $23 million budget hole over the stadium's first five years — one that could ultimately have to be filled by raising property taxes.

This is why it's so vitally important who's on the hook for stadium costs if revenue projections don't work out — and why it's crucial in Seattle that prospective arena builder Chris Hansen is actually agreeing to increase rent payments to cover any shortfall in arena revenues.

Bridgeview, though, didn't get the Fire owners to agree to such a provision, so now they're getting, well, kicked in the teeth. Not so much, though, the Bridgeview elected officials who approved the deal, who've gotten to hand out millions of dollars worth of contracts to favored businesses.

These stadium deals seem to become shell games where money is hidden and shifted until heads spin trying to figure out where it all went. We experienced some of that recently here in Nashville with the pro hockey revenues. Buyers beware of the legalized confidence games.

Twitter account of tonight's Cleveland Park community meeting on building a garbage transfer station

I'm sure that Jamie Hollin is going to follow up with a thorough, reflective and engaging report of the proceedings of tonight's community meeting on a proposed solid waste transfer facility for Cleveland Park at his blog, but here is a quick-and-dirty summary based on his blow-by-blow Twitter stream with a couple of observations tweeted by Matt Pulle, who was also at the meeting:

• It was the largest turnout for a Cleveland Park Neighborhood Association meeting in memory.
• A meeting that should have been 30 minutes dragged on for 2 hours.
• The meeting dragged on for 2 hours because the community was preached at by meeting leaders.
• Among other things, meeting leaders preached to neighborhood leaders on how to be engaged in the community.
• Meeting attendees were admonished to keep their questions to 1 minute.
• 30 minutes into the meeting, the audience was still not told what the purpose of the meeting was.
• People were ready to vote on the neighborhood garbage station an hour into the meeting.
• Garbage station owners said they are "small operation" even though they operate in 30 states.
• Planned building will be 100,000 square feet which equates to tons of garbage trucked through Cleveland Park.
• Scare tactics were used (that is, threats of what could go in place of a garbage station).
• Pro-garbage-station speaker promised there would not be garbage odor problems in Cleveland Park.
• Pro-garbage-station speaker compared storing tons of garbage in Cleveland Park to a household storing a rubbish bin under the sink.
• No one in the audience showed public support for the project when vote was taken.
• According to Matt: 99% attending were against a trash station in Cleveland Park.
• CM Scott Davis says he will file the bill in support of a neighborhood garbage transfer station tomorrow (Friday), which puts in on track for a June 19 council meeting.
• CM Davis seemed elusive, but may be part of the 1% supporting a trash station in Cleveland Park.

I would say never underestimate the power of a council member to leverage "councilmanic courtesy" to pass legislation over the protests of a majority of constituents. Metro Council is tight like that. This sounds like a potential mess for Cleveland Park.

Do developers have the right to interrupt local business by generating ear-pounding construction noise?

After the community meeting last week in 12South another problem emerged on the neighborhood discussion group with the development on 12th Avenue being built by H.G. Hill Realty and Southeast Venture.

Some neighborhood leaders were concerned about the enormous jackhammer used to demolish on site near the 12South Taproom during lunch hours (11a-1p). Some reported that they could hear the loud noise blocks away and conjectured that it might be having a negative impact on lunch business next to the site.

A representative with Southeast Venture responded to concerned neighbors:

We along with our contractor have been in close contact with the 12South Taproom proprietors from the beginning of construction as their lunch business had the potential to be impacted the most from our hammering and excavation.  As such, we agreed to keep all hammering away from the ‘taproom-side’, (or southern boundary of the site) during lunch hours.  To my knowledge and each time I’ve driven by to check in, this has been the case.  There was never a discussion that we would cease hammering at that time.  Our goal is the get through this stage of the construction as quickly as possible.

I realize the hammering is a nuisance; however, the good news is that it will be over in a few weeks.  We are almost finished with excavating to the grade of our basement level and will commence work on the excavation of the footings for the foundation of the building next week. We will continue to coordinate our efforts to minimize the impact on our neighbors.

There is no ordinance that I know of against construction crews making an objectionable amount of noise during lunch hour. Neighbors who are concerned about the impact on business and their personal lives seem subject to the will of the crews and developers. 

Well, you could have his favorite PR firm coach your writers, never ask him critical questions, and declare him "Tennessean of the Year"

Tweet from Blake Farmer, who was one of two reporters covering Mayor Karl Dean's speech to a Rotary Club today observing Dean's embrace of their competition:

The Tennessean journos have shamelessly hitched themselves to Karl Dean's star, and he is returning the favor with some free advertising to influential local leaders. There is no grander sell-out of the local "4th Estate," and journos at other local media companies should be pleased that they are are not hitched to Hizzoner like those at Nashville's main newspaper, because there is a cost to the groveling coziness:

Fehr School preservation update

Just found out that CM Erica Gilmore and the Historical Commission's Tim Walker are working on the application to put Salemtown's Fehr School building on the National Register of Historic Places to help to preserve the civil rights landmark from demolition or radical alteration. CM Gilmore is trying to get Metro General Services to sign off on the application, and she hopes to submit it by Thursday.

After 3 months of ignoring 12South neighborhood voices, developers hold PR meeting to trot out talking points

H.G. Hill Realty and Southeast Venture say nothing to reassure 12South residents in this video that they will not be strangled with car traffic. Their reference to Hillsboro Village fails on the question of traffic and parking.


12 South - June 4, 2012 - An Installment of the Nashville Docujournal from The Moving Picture Boys on Vimeo.


The problem really is Metro's permissive codes, but it is also the influtential, financial relationships between developers and Metro Council members and the dominance of developers on the Planning Commission. Ordinary people have regular jobs that don't include the planning and zoning process. Developers make more money by spending more time and dropping campaign donations into the local political process. You can thank developers for the permissiveness of codes. Their jobs are to stay one step ahead of neighbors to protect their competitive edge.

News media follows up on 12South traffic, development concerns

NewsChannel5 reported details over the weekend on the increasingly difficult environment that commercial development in 12South is creating for residents:

The small street has seen a major residential and commercial boost in the past two years. Ten new businesses opened their doors and a 90 unit apartment complex was approved, all within a half mile of each other.

While business is at its best on the street, traffic and parking has been worse than ever.

Valet drivers at Urban Grub park hundreds of cars every night, all while maneuvering through traffic and congestion on the two-lane street.

Almost 2 weeks ago, I blogged about this long-developing story.

Sharon Gentry covered for Alan Coverstone?

An anonymous commenter writes of the last school board meeting in which action was taken on charter school applications:

Board member Mark North poured over the data of not only charter schools, but also local MNPS schools. What he found was that the charter schools proposed to set up shop to address students in schools that not only were not failing, they were in the top three in the county. He also studied in depth the charter applications and found glaring errors within the applications themselves.

North presented his findings to the board on May 29th only to have his board members question his findings and sweep them under the rug. Dr. Sharon Gentry did the first sweeping. Her words were an attempt to devalue what Mr. North had uncovered and make him look foolish. No one else on the board even questions Mr. Coverstone's committee to recommend a charter school where one is not needed.

Coverstone is being paid a six figure salary to dismantle MNPS with charter schools that do not work, and his board members are following his lead like lemmings.

That account is consistent with my experience with my school board representative, Sharon Gentry. She came across to me as dismissive toward concerned parents in a community meeting I attended. I never really heard from her when I copied her an email I sent to Gracie Porter about comments she made in the media celebrating Green Hills's Julia Green Elementary getting iPads while my kid's North Nashville classroom had desktops that seemed to limp along.

It is also worth noting that Gentry and her husband received large campaign donations from well-placed leaders in the Nashville Chamber of Commerce, the lobby about as invested in charter schools as any other special interest group. I suppose privately-governed, publicly-financed charter schools represent a big windfall for the business lobby's agenda. Is Sharon Gentry's opposition to Mark North prompted by campaign finance influence?

What is the impact of a sports facility on a community's sidewalks?

A Brooklyn neighborhood group facing construction of a pro basketball arena conducts its own sidewalk impact study and documents it in this video.


Sidewalks from AtlanticYardsWatch on Vimeo.

The demand on the sidewalk's "effective width" by the two groups passing each other near the end of the video takes the problem out of the conceptual range and illustrates it vividly.

If the plan for a new minor league ballpark ever starts to fly in Nashville, leaders in the affected neighborhoods should not assume that the impact studies conducted by developers are going to be offered in the community's best interest. We should always be prepared to do our own analysis, since no one knows our neighborhoods better than we do. Learn the regulations on sidewalks and be prepared to conduct your own tests for safety and quality of life.

Nashville Public Library doing it for the kids on a Saturday in North Nashville

The scene at North Library this morning.

There was a marionette show for kids at the North Library in Buena Vista today and Kid Klatch (a regular weekend event that includes families from Salemtown and Germantown) represented. Kudos to Nashville Public Library for being there for us.

CMA Music Festival relies on volunteers, but what about the jobs?

It is noble to volunteer time and energy to projects that serve the Nashville community. Many professional musicians donate their performances at the CMA Music Fest so that proceeds can be donated to Metro Nashville Public Schools music programs. That is a good thing. According to the Country Music Association website, the volunteer hours donated also flip into more money donated to MNPS "Keep the Music Playing" project, which began in 2006.

WPLN reports that at 2012 CMA Music Fest (41st Fan Fair), more volunteers than ever are being used instead of paid staff:

More than sixty-thousand country music fans are expected to jam downtown Nashville each of the next four days for the CMA Music Festival. Hundreds of volunteers will be helping with crowd control and manning information booths.

For the past three years, the Country Music Association has reduced its paid staff at the festival and shifted some responsibilities to volunteers.

CMA recruits the free labor by offering two free tickets to Sunday night’s finale.

The nobility of volunteer actions should not trump critical questions concerning how volunteers are being used. And I have a couple of questions, which I have not been able to find answers for yet, because I have not located CMA's financials either on Charity Navigator or Giving Matters.

First of all is there a one-to-one match between each volunteer and the actual salary a staff member might be paid to perform the same work? If there is not a direct match, then volunteers should be told that not all of their "donation" will be going to school music programs, but to help CMA's cash flow.

Second, I recall past reports on the economic impact of CMA Fests (economic impact reports are not always the most objective tools, by the way) that claimed that they generated local jobs for many Nashvillians. If increasing numbers of volunteers are being used to reduce the paid staff, that suggests to me that the local labor force is not deriving the promised benefits. There is nobility in volunteering and there is nobility in working for wages.

In my opinion, CMA cannot both claim to provide a remarkable number of jobs for people who need jobs and rely on increasing numbers of volunteers while reducing staff without losing some credibility. Even the nobility of voluntarism cannot stand in for unrealized promises of employment.

Maybe if they act hard enough like a new facility is a done deal, then people will just assume it is

They do not have a facility yet, the community may not support one, and there remain questions over whether Nashville even needs another one, but they held a job fair earlier today in East Nashville:

UPDATE: This does not sound good for anyone. According to Jamie Hollin:

1000 Apex St. is the former site of US Lumber and is zoned industrial. Many of you may remember the site and immediate surrounding area being under water in May 2010. The area’s detailed neighborhood design plan marked the area as proposed green space. In order to turn the site into a waste transfer station it will require the passage of a resolution by the Metro Council, then it will require the approval of the Board of Zoning Appeals for a special exception.

So, is Waste Connections setting this up to be a jobs over planning/green space issue by pushing a job fair prematurely?

Hate mail

I give you a comment to me, copied to others from Molly McCluer--resident of Salemtown since 2010 and president of the neighborhood association for the past five months--which ended a long, parsing diatribe against an email I originally addressed to a developer (who then forwarded to her):

McCluer & Mayor on SNNA website

your chronic adversarial approach to any and every issue you can conjure up is harming Salemtown, and has led to the almost complete disintegration of [Salemtown Neighbors Neighborhood Association] by the end of 2011. You are using the community to entertain yourself at others’ significant expense; you need to stop it, and do a lot of full-time soul-searching , rather than combing old emails and trolling anyplace you can find, to trigger the arguments you crave.  You are hurting Salemtown, and you need to stop it now.

This is not the first time I have received hate mail because I blogged something someone did not agree with, but it was the first time someone has accused me of dividing an association to which I have devoted so much time, energy, and money. If I were going to destroy it why would invest so much of myself in it? If I were going to bring down Salemtown Neighbors why not impugn it, attack it publicly on a regular basis in the past 18 months? I have a blog, after all.

As one who has served in various leadership positions in SNNA for years, I can testify that there were many reasons why 2011 was a down year for the association, and the actions of one person had little to do with that. If I blogged something toxic about the organization in 2011 I do not recall it. And I do not believe I pointed any fingers on this blog for SNNA setbacks. Rushing to scapegoat another individual for association problems makes no sense to me.

However, I was not going to blog on Ms. McCluer's personal attack until I found out that I was added to the business agenda of the last neighborhood association meeting at the last minute (the agenda emailed to the membership beforehand did not have me on it). Because of a previous commitment to my daughter I could not attend the meeting, but others who were there told me that Ms. McCluer brought me up unexpectedly and commented on me in ways that made them uncomfortable.

Then I received the meeting minutes from the SNNA secretary, in which Ms. McCluer's personal issues with me became a part of the permanent record of the association:

Molly addressed the group re: Mike Byrd’s blog that had negatively referred to Mike Kenner, developer of 5th & Coffee. The blog suggested that there was deception on Mike Kenner’s part to build LEED certified homes in order to obtain a variance to move forward with the development.

• Mike Kenner [principal with Kenner McLean Development who lives in Sylvan Heights], developer of 5th & Coffee property asked to address the group. He apologized for any misunderstanding but he made it clear that he never discussed building LEED certified homes in Salemtown. He builds “green”, Energy Star homes. LEED is too costly for the Salemtown neighborhood. He prides himself on being neighborhood friendly.
• A SNNA member commented that anyone’s personal blog does not represent or speak for SNNA.

I responded in no uncertain terms to the secretary that I never claimed to speak for anyone else on the blog and that I believe that this is the first time in the organization's 8-year history (much of which I have promoted in 7 years of blogging) that a member's questions about a developer have been written negatively into the SNNA minutes, which are supposed to record association business. There were no motions on me passed or approved, in fact, members present that night tell me that they openly questioned the negative comments about me (their feedback was not recorded into the minutes).

Needless to say, I am less-than-satisfied by all of this baseless spanking by an association officer on behalf of a developer. If she were not president, this would be going down a whole different way. She would have written her hate mail and it would have ended there. Unfortunately, the personal animosity continues as SNNA business.

The kicker for me: I voted for her at last year's SNNA elections. No good deed goes unpunished.

The Mayor's property tax hike proposal navigated rough seas during last night's public hearing

Watching the Metro Council's public hearing debate over the Mayor's proposed budget last night (on the second of three readings) was not different for me than any of the previous years' debates. Most of the advocates for Karl Dean's budget were Metro employees and outside agencies that would benefit from the proposal. That is typical and not at all inappropriate. The main difference for me was that for once the Mayor, who no longer is subject to Metro elections, is finally proposing a tax increase to fund services and payroll rather than pitching his usual slew of budget cuts. That energized a large group of public opponents, mostly conservatives encouraged by Republicans, who seemed to at least match the proponents in numbers.

I am not opposed to Mayor's property tax proposal, but for reasons too numerous to list here, I'm not a zealous advocate either. While more sympathetic with those who say we need more revenues to address our budget challenges, I also believe that the Mayor has not done much over most of his tenure to stop the free fall Metro services while committing to historically large capital projects and helping to sell off public education. So, I am both for raising taxes and sympathetic with the populist backlash that keeps reeling at the Mayor's Office.

Therefore, you may be able to guess where my impression of last night's meeting ended up. If not, I'll clarify. While I disagreed with most of their misplaced shots at government and their ridiculous calls for selling off and privatizing more government entities, I thought the opponents of the Mayor's budget were strongest where they articulated populist options to Dean's plan. One I heard several times was that council should formulate amendments to the budget that would only hike pay for police officers and teachers; a corollary to this was the argument that amendments should allow raises in pay of those workers at the bottom end of the Metro payroll, but not of the ones at the top of the Courthouse pyramid.

Conservatives rarely seem afraid to appeal to populism. That does not mean they get it right when they claim it. Liberals by and large seem uncomfortable with mass appeals. The vacuum they leave when they balk at populist appeals from the bottom is inevitably filled by opportunistic and angry conservatives. If the council progressives could ever stoop to take up the populist banner and make working class people their primary focus, they would divide and conquer. They would blunt conservative criticism of what appear to be elite commitments to public art and libraries. These don't have to be snobbish and condescending priorities. Liberals in the New Deal age were able to pull populism together with intellectual and artistic pursuits. It was never an either/or. Liberals in this age invite an either/or by shying away from populism and kowtowing to the wealthy and well-placed.

Former CM Erik Cole tried to brand his pro-Dean group, "Moving Nashville Forward" as a grassroots effort, but to me it came across as astroturf. Mr. Cole just happened to be the last one to speak in favor of the tax plan at last night's public hearing. As a CM Mr. Cole once argued that council decisions should not be subject to popular will. So, the fact that he has been blasting out emails encouraging people to wear t-shirts and pack the public gallery in the effort to lobby council to support Mayor Karl Dean looks cynical to me. Given his past ambivalence, I might call it a case of "populism envy" if not one of cynicism. In those blasts he also wrongly pointed out that Dean opponents did not offer any options (in fact, I just cited some of the more populist options that were expressed during the public hearing).

Council progressives can get all the support the want for funding the arts and the libraries if they would first be advocates for the working class and others pushed to the margins by Nashville's ruling class. Very few look comfortable doing that. The Mayor's plan is going to pass, but it is up to the council to include amendments that make a tax hike more progressive in the populist sense of "progressive" in order to bridge the gap between liberals and common people.

The cost of appeasing the other side

I'm willing to give the captains of Metro Nashville Public Schools the benefit of the doubt, and believe that their embrace of charter schools to this point has been an attempt to save, not destroy public education. The only thing is that the conservative champions of charter schools, vouchers, and private subsidies are intent not on saving public education but burying it in the graveyard of privatization.

Even so progressive education reformers still seek to compromise; they find spots and resources for charter schools. But it is a slippery slope. To put it another way, support for charter schools allows the camel's nose to duck under the tent flap. After that, there is nothing to bar the rest of the beast from coming in the tent.

So, why should they be surprised?

School Board Chair Gracie Porter says she was “somewhat shocked” by how “aggressively” the state is moving on charter approvals. She says as charters pull funding away from the district, “we are still expected to perform as the same level, even with less dollars.”

At the same time, Porter wanted to make clear: “Metro School Board is not against charters. We want the best charters that we can possibly have. And we also want our children across the district – not just in charters but across the district – to really be successful. Oftentimes we hear that it’s us-and-them. I don’t view our system as us-and-them.

Rather than feeling wounded or victimized, we must quickly learn the lesson that there is no compromise on public education. Charters prepare the way for further privatization of public education. For Ms. Porter to respond as she did to the distinct probability of politics in red-state Tennessee was unrealistic. And simply trying to restate a liberal Janus-faced approach that invites charters, but not too many charters, is setting oneself up to be beat in the future.

Sweet deal for a local church or necessary edition to the neighborhood?

Local government watchdog, Mike Peden, wrote me today with the following in the run-up to tonight's council meeting:

This is the cost for the new 12” water main for the Church of Christ on 40th Ave N – almost $800,000. This bill is on the Council agenda tonight.

The church is contributing $20,000.

There is nothing but that church and some duplexes between Charlotte and Catherine Johnson Pkwy. The church is currently building a huge addition.

Mike also tells me that he has emailed his council member Jason Holleman and the bill sponsors (Edith Taylor Langster, Sean McGuire, Walter Hunt) a number of times without getting any replies.

Report: pro sports do not return the public resources they take

A recent report from an investment bank of all places cuts through the flack on pro sports and realistically assesses actual impact:

independent academic research studies consistently conclude that new stadiums and arenas have no measurable effect on the level of real income or employment in the metropolitan areas in which they are located. Feasibility studies for professional sports facilities often fail to account for the substitution effect. Individuals generally maintain a consistent level of entertainment spending so money spent on sporting events typically comes at the expense of cash spent in restaurants, on travel, and at movie theaters.

Hence, managing sports and entertainment encumbrance is a zero sum game: sports claim money that will not be spent on other forms of entertainment. And in many cases, the competing forms of entertainment do not have the resources to keep up with subsidized sports:

These same studies also fail to accurately assess the degree to which sports crowd out other types of economic activity. The physical infrastructure of a city, whether it’s a private hotel or a public airport, cannot abruptly increase capacity. As a consequence, sports fans tend to displace other visitors. As acase in point, Robert Baade and Victor Matheson at the College of the Holy Cross have examined the number of visitors to Beijing during the Summer Olympics of 2008. Tourist arrivals for the month of August did not fluctuate year-over-year and the number of visitors to Beijing actually declined on an annual basis. Similar results can be found for Olympic Games held in the US and for such sporting events as the Super Bowl. There appears to be no increase in retail sales, hotel occupancy rates, or passenger enplanements in cities that hosted Super Bowls and Olympic Games, at least in the decade prior to 2003.

These facts undercut the claims of advocates of corporate sports welfare, who insist that public revenues invested in teams are catalysts for secondary business growth. Instead, there is a drain on local resources, a risk for local nontax revenues "available" for debt service (which decreases funding for metropolitan services) but also a critical tipping point for strapped sports franchises:

The use of public subsidies to underwrite the cost of construction for a new stadium or arena was a contributing factor in the rapid increase in the valuation of sports franchises .... This type of growth is difficult to sustain without greater leverage. An uncertain economy, labor strife, and volatility in the financial markets all have taken a toll on some ownership groups in each of the major sports.The leverage employed to meet the asking price for a new sports franchise has undermined the financial stability of some ownership groups. Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association, and the National Hockey League currently operate franchises directly in place of ownership groups that are facing insolvency. Ironically, these situations may prompt another round of team relocations and another cycle of public sector bidding for professional sports.

The report honestly points out that subsidies for pro sports help a narrow band of people in local communities: wealthy franchise owners and spectators. Otherwise, the benefits do not spread around to everyone like they do with public utilities and transportation infrastructure. And the claims of boosters that all boats rise on the tides of pro franchises are disingenuous and unfounded.

Nashville has already taken the risk with a pro football team and a pro hockey club, and the trade-off for the "prestige" of pro sports and drag on our resources is in place. The political will for rethinking these arrangements seems weak here. For example, Nashvillians seem fine with paying higher stormwater rates while millions from Metro Water subsidize the Titans franchise annually.

Reportedly there are a couple of exceptions where other cities demand that the private sector pull its share of the load for pro sports. San Francisco built a National League ballpark without using public bonding debt, and the city is demanding that their NBA franchise pursue private financing. While tax dollars are being used by Washington DC to subsidize major league ballpark for the Nationals, the taxes are levied on the 1,800 largest businesses, which sounds more progressive to me than drawing on the public resources used by the largest number of people.

I cannot see Nashville pursuing either of these options for fear of inconveniencing the private sector. Mayor Karl Dean would not even levy a fair stormwater fee on businesses, saddling the rest of us with the burden of paying off the largest share. Nashville seems willing to cough up money that other cities are starting to hold on to.

Hopefully, as Nashville moves toward eventually approving a minor league baseball park, we will be more careful about the bill of goods we are sure to be offered due to our reputation for handing money over.

Metro Nashville Public Schools does not control charter schools

Former East Nashville council member Jamie Hollin explains how local decisions about charter schools are ultimately controlled by people from outside of Nashville:

What seemingly few appreciate is that the denial of a locally submitted charter application is reviewable by the state BOE pursuant to the applicable statutory regime. In other words, the ultimate grant or denial of a charter school application lies, in this instance, not with your locally elected school board and administration, but by the following: B. Fielding Rolston (Kingsport), Mike Edwards (Knoxville—CEO of Knoxville Chamber of Commerce), Vernita B. Justice (Chattanooga), Lonnie Roberts (4th Congressional District), Carolyn Pearre (Nashville), Jean Anne Rogers (Murfreesboro), Jim Ayers (Nashville), Dr. Melvin Wright, Sr. (Jackson), Teresa Sloyan (Memphis), plus a student member and the Executive Director of the Tennessee Higher Education Commission in an ex-officio capacity (non-voting). The foregoing list comprises the current members of our state BOE. Seven Tennesseans from some place other than Nashville (good folks, I am certain).

The net effect is that people who are not accountable to local voters will be deciding local education policy from this point forward ....

I have written before that my position on charters is evolving. My evolution on the subject is over .... 

Jump to read more about how Jamie's position has evolved. The gimmick of charters, touted by Mayor Karl Dean, does not guarantee quality public education. The fact that the gimmick is subject to influence from individuals with no local obligations is more troubling.

Another Mayor's budget, another time of calls to cut common people's health care

A blogging Nashville pastor reflects on the likely fallout from political attempts to remove Metro's modest health care safety net by cutting funding of Nashville General Hospital at Meharry and the Bordeaux Long-Term Care facility:

It was clear that the closing of the hospital would lead to people going untreated for their diseases — including treatable heart disease, cancer and other life-threatening illnesses. Likewise, skilled-care facilities like Bordeaux are even more unlikely to take on indigent patients, meaning that the families of the weakest and frailest among us would have few options for the care of their family members. It’s not outside the realm of possibility that there are people who would die sooner than they might otherwise if we did not provide the care that the Metro Hospital Authority provides.

Nashville General sits right square in North Nashville, and Bordeaux lies to the west of us across the Cumberland. So, these facilities provide important care for our local neighborhoods, especially for "the least of these". Politicians, especially conservative ones, are always targeting the weak and the poor by slashing and grabbing money from the programs that serve them. They do not seem to think twice about turning the frail out into the streets or letting them suffer and die from treatable diseases.

We should consider any threat to defund these institutions as a threat to our general welfare and common good in North Nashville.

Nashville Scene judges Belle Meade a better place than Centennial Park for kids, dogs, and families

Nashville Scene writers tend to mount the high horse when the subject of excluding certain groups of people in Belle Meade pops on to their radar. Yet, since May 17, they've said nothing about the fact that their parent company's Movies in the Park event has been removed from the gritty hydrangeas and the streetwise ducks of Centennial Park to the nerve-settling pastoral milieu of suburban Belle Meade's Percy Warner Park.

The "alternative" newsweekly's professional flack told local public radio that the rationale for the Belle Meade move is to keep "this a place where people feel comfortable bringing their kids and their dogs and their families". Reportedly, there was some gang activity at one of last year's events that included gun play (no injuries), and the intrepid newspaper blinked and it is fleeing to the exurbs with its films. Even so, the marketing director did not seem to grasp the sobering and breathtaking implications of what she was saying: predominantly white West Nashville is no longer as safe for kids, dogs, and families as 99% white Belle Meade.

Capt. Dobie woulda cleaned up Centennial Park's mean streets
because white flight was not an option

This should prick all kinds of historic issues for those of us in North Nashville. West Nashville is flooded with events and services at a level that we do not enjoy. Resources flow west and east in this city, and rarely north and south. So, if the Nashville Scene judges West Nashville unfit to hold events for kids, dogs, and families, how much more will they feel led to neglect the families in our diverse communities because of their own fears?

I don't necessarily blame Scene bloggers for promoting and not criticizing the move, because they have to think about their jobs in an uncertain journalism world. However, they've dropped a couple of perches from their moral high ground on the problems of prejudice in lordly Belle Meade. After all, country clubs in places like Belle Meade are by definition exclusionary. And where country club aristocracy was not built on institutionalized segregation, then it exists with the aid of economic inequities and hoarded resources that never even trickle down to working class and under-class folk. Criticizing the Belle Meade country club for leaving other wealthy people behind is inconsistent with stifling a critical voice against your own company retreating from every other strata of Nashvillian for Belle Meade without the aid of double standards. And starting off the new Belle Meade run with "The Help", a movie about white housewives and their black domestic workers seems at once a further twist and startlingly poetic.

Metro Parks did not respond when journos asked them about the move, which does not look good for them either. They do not seem exactly out in front of this story. What is worse, however, is the perception that they have no control over functions at their more urban public parks even in predominantly white West Nashville.

The move from white West End to the even whiter exurbs smacks of white flight. It also betrays a false sense of security that gangs are only an urban problem easily solved by a more suburbanized setting. As if youth gangs do not have cars. As if youth gangs have not been expanding in suburbia for the past 40 years. So, maybe Metro Parks hopes that the Belle Meade PD can be more effective at walling out gang activity than their own rangers and Metro Police have been securing parks. We also should not ignore the cynical possibility that this may be a strategy for the parks department to save money on security in a lean budget year.

Whatever the reason, it does not look good, and I wholeheartedly agree with those have observed on Twitter today that it may indicate tacit racism and classicism on the part of the newspaper and Metro government.

12South leaders believe they can make positive contributions to TwelveSouth Flats

The last time I checked in with the 12South neighborhood about the controversial "TwelveSouth Flats" development in February, frustrations with the developers were running high. We are less than a week away from a community meeting (Monday, June 4, 6:30p-8:00p, 2415 12th Av S), sponsored by H.G. Hill Realty and Southeast Venture. According to developers, the meeting will "represent the official launch" of TwelveSouth Flats during which they will provide "the first public viewing of the project" and "answer questions" (no word on whether they will invite feedback).

Flats plan falling flat?

Even though the developers don't mention saying they welcome community feedback on their concept, several 12South residents expressed the wish that Southeast Venture and H.G. Hill Realty make even the most modest effort to consider a few changes. And a number of them wrote letters to the developers with the modest request.


Ken Winter, the head of "Save Our Urban 12TH", responded to developers' comments in the local daily in an early April email:

the developer met with us to explain what the project would be, not to explain its fit with precedent or to engage the community with ideas. Never did the developer acknowledge the neighborhood's history or prior developers' plans and intentions....

One hundred new residents with automobiles on an already congested 12th Avenue directly contradicts the 2008 community plan for mixed use (commercial) areas: "Discourage auto-oriented development and land uses near neighborhoods. Rather, encourage development and land uses that cater to the neighborhood, create a lively streetscape, and are located in buildings that are massed, scaled and oriented to create a pedestrian-friendly environment."

In sum, the developers are importing a one-size-fit-all, post-2007 real estate crash, inventory item (upscale residential rentals) from major, four lane "corridors" and "collector streets" (11th Av/Gulch, 1st Av/Rolling Mill Hill, Jefferson St/Germantown, 8th Av/Melrose, etc) and uncritically imposing it on a narrow, street-scaped, two-lane traffic-jammed "artery," which happens to be a neighborhood business district and commuter route to the county line. Seventy-seven units per acre is an aggressive imposition.

The 12South community leaders say that they do not object to the developers maximizing their profits. They simply wish that the latter would do so more collaboratively with the neighborhood. Concerns expressed included that TwelveSouth Flats represents more of a drift toward the scale of Green Hills or The Gulch and that it would not blend with the small-business atmosphere that has enhanced 12South's quality of life.

One person expressed the sense that it was mutually beneficial to have the neighborhood allied with developers rather than presenting something that puts them at odds with unconsidered growth. Another leader observed that some demolition had already started on the site in late April on a Sunday, which may have been a violation of Metro ordinances. She considered the demo crew's expressed indifference to her questions about it a metaphor for "for the mindset of H.G. Hill and Southeast".

Another concern expressed is traffic impact. In May a discussion started about overflow traffic from an existing restaurant called "Urban Grub" and recurring problems: residents unable to park on their own streets or blocked into their driveways by parked cars, parking in alleys and on sidewalks, valets who peel out of parking lots to get owners' cars back to them, and late-night bar patrons who absent-mindedly step out into high-volume traffic. Some residents worry that the restaurant planned for TwelveSouth Flats will make an already "unsustainable" traffic problem much worse unless developers listen to the community.

But if developers have refused to acknowledge the community's concerns in the past, should we expect anything more from next Monday's "community" meeting?

Update on problems Velocity homeowners are having with adjacent businesses

A couple of months ago I blogged on the problems that the Velocity Homeowners group was having with noise from Bar Louie Nashville construction and the potential for the first-floor establishment (whose late night hours run through 2am) to keep homeowners up because of the placement of music speakers. Bar Louie opened last week so I checked in with their online community to see how things have been going.

Despite assurances they received from Bar Louie brass, the construction noise reportedly continued to intrude on the quality of life of members of the Velocity community. A couple of owners reported that construction set off fire alarms for long periods of time during the day. One owner felt the need to pull the alarm in his condo out of the wall. Another owner reported that construction noise in late April repeatedly started at 6:40am, and she encouraged the group to call Bar Louie's Director of Communications, Chad Apap. There was also a report that Bar Louie's invitation-only "soft opening" resulted in noise coming through some condo floors and walls. However, the business did not generate the noise expected at its official "hard" opening on May 21. So, perhaps things are beginning to look up at Velocity.

Meanwhile, a separate business, Kocktails and Kouture [sic], violated Velocity rules by hanging a banner from the balcony of a resident living above it. The resident reported that crews secured the banner ropes to her property with rusted metal anchors, which have already defaced her balcony. While she admits she does not see the problem as huge, she also is concerned that the boutique's owners did not ask her permission. Moreover, she expressed opposition to the idea that businesses in the mixed-use development may be held to laxer standards than residents are held to. One member of the Velocity group replied to her concerns by suggesting that she charge Kocktails and Kouture 20 bucks a day to rent her property as advertising space. That is a stroke of genius.

Allegations that assaults started at YMCA program and continued at North Nashville public school

Former council critic of populism now embracing it to help the Mayor?

Monday morning former council member and husband of one of Karl Dean's appointees sent out an email blast across Nashville encouraging a populist effort, even though in his last term as CM he criticized populism to aid a scuffling Dean project. Here is Mr. Cole's "Moving Nashville Forward" email:

This morning, you read in the Tennessean about the Mayor's plan to move Nashville forward with a budget that invests in our schools, our neighborhoods and our city. You also read about a few folks who say no to everything , without ever presenting a plan of their own.

Now, it's time to make your voice heard. Here’s how you can help:

1. EMAIL all Council members with the subject line : "Say YES to Moving Nashville Forward." You can email them at councilmembers@nashville.gov , or find members' individual addresses here.

2. VOLUNTEER to help us turn out calls and emails to Council members. Reply to this email with your contact info.

3. JOIN US Tuesday, June 5 at 6:30 p.m. at the Metro Council Public Hearing on the Budget. Come, wear a T-shirt and show your support!

Finally, please share this email by clicking the icons at the top of this message. Don't forget to Like Moving Nashville Forward on Facebook and follow @MoveNashForward on Twitter.

Thanks so much for helping out. Your support and hard work will pay off for Nashville!

All the best,

Erik Cole
Moving Nashville Forward

You may recall the WPLN interview late in 2009 where Mr. Cole insisted that he would be unbowed by the historic turnout against the Mayor's fairgrounds plan comparing his unpopular support of the Mayor to those who marched for civil rights and to those who fought Hitler. His criticism of supporters of the fairgrounds and community-based planning came across to me as condescending when I originally listen to it, especially when thousands wrote emails and eventually showed up for the public hearing in "Save the Fairgrounds" tees to speak against the Mayor's proposal.

Apparently, what was not good for the goose is now good for the gander. I'm not saying that the people who support a tax increase are wrong. However, Mr. Cole seems to have a double standard on the question of populism and its uses; he does not seem as quick to bludgeon populist support of his issues by comparing it to the slowness of Americans to support civil rights and to fight fascism. Nope. He looks comfortable mobilizing support for his cause absent a single reference to his own past "caveats" about the popular will.

Cohousing organizer gives Enclave the details on group's last meeting

Diane, one of the folks spearheading the cohousing group plans for a development at 5th and Taylor in Germantown, commented on a previous Enclave post on the project with more details, including good news regarding an old-growth Cottonwood:

There were 14 households represented in the site design workshop and we worked on Saturday brainstorming and discussing goals of the community. The group is interested in a multi-generational, multi-cultural community. The site was designed for some on street parking, a few garages and carports. Bike storage will be included. The community layout is designed in away that as people return to the community they walk past one another for social gatherings and contact on the common house patio. Sunday we worked with blocks and diagrams on the site to position how we wanted the housing, parking, bike storage, garden, play area, etc to be included. It was a lot of work but at the end everyone seemed really excited about it. For now the old Cottonwood tree is to remain and the children's play area under it will include a swing. The common house will have a wrap around porch partially under the tree.

Lookouts owner cannot afford ballpark, Chattanooga trying to buy

Even after leasing on land for $1 per year from a nonprofit, private ownership cannot afford to field minor league baseball and own the ballpark:

Mayor Ron Littlefield is seeking state legislation that would, if it becomes necessary, help the city's Sports Authority or possibly River City Co. purchase AT&T Field to ease the sale of the Chattanooga Lookouts to private buyers and keep the Class AA team playing downtown.

"We don't really want to be a player unless it's necessary to save the team for Chattanooga," Littlefield said in one of several interviews on Tuesday and Wednesday about the legislation ....

Most cities in Tennessee and across the nation build stadiums to attract or retain professional sports teams, Littlefield noted ....

The land beneath the stadium is owned by River City Co., a nonprofit that promotes downtown development through the creation of public spaces. With team owners footing the stadium's cost, River City leases the field -- prime city real estate with a commanding view of the city and Tennessee River -- for $1 a year ....

The land back in 1999 was valued at $1.2 million. Latest estimates are its worth $9 million, [River City President Kim] White said. At issue, she said, "is how do we keep that momentum [downtown] going and keep baseball."

Rep. Vince Dean, R-East Ridge, is sponsoring the bill that would allow the city use state sales taxes from Lookouts tickets and concessions sales for the bonds. The bill was in the House Budget Subcommittee on Wednesday.

Because of its cost to the state, estimated by analysts at $275,000 annually, and the fact that the costs of the late-moving legislation was not included in Gov. Bill Haslam's recent budget revisions, the bill ... is being held in the subcommittee as final manuevering [sic] takes place on the state's $30.2 billion annual spending plan. It may or may not make the cut.

When new stadiums are proposed it seems their branding mantra is that they will bring in more sales tax revenues for other services. Is Chattanooga's dilemma in the General Assembly showing that in order to retain a pro sport the mantra shifts to using stadiums' own sales tax revenues to pay for the sport itself?

Updates on cohousing and development

A couple of updates:

• A friend who has been involved in the Germantown cohousing project told me today that the meeting last week produced several resolutions, including building of a "common house" where residents can gather for meals, meetings, or entertainment and a community garden for the homes in the project at the corner of 5th Av N and Taylor St. The square footage of the two dozen multi-family structures will vary from 750 to 1,700. Cohousing intentionally includes home owners in the planning and design of their mutual community.
• Roy Dale, the engineer working with the developer of the project at 6th and Garfield, indicated to me by email 2 days ago that it may be 2 weeks before the high grass and brush can be cut at the rezoned property. Reportedly, it will be that long before developer Robin York can acquire the property and take responsibility for its upkeep. Dale also said he would ask York to make an attempt to convince the owner to mow and clean up the property. The current absentee owner is Ray C. Nathurst of Brentwood.

5th and Garfield: past and present

If there is any testament to the progress Salemtown has made in the past dozen years, it is the dramatic change at the intersection of 5th and Garfield. Where once a dilapidating cinder block market rumored to host dog fights stood there is now the first of 5 8 attractive new homes going up. Compare and contrast:

2005

2012

From gang graffiti target to residential buildings partially influenced by the community at a host of meetings:

2005

2012

What was once an eyesore with a view of Downtown is becoming a corner of urban quality:

2005

2012

A paler shade of green

CLARIFICATION (May 21, 2012): Mike Kenner finally got back with me with a request that I take scrub the original post below off the blog. He insists that he never mentioned LEED to Salemtown reps in August last year and that his company never planned on this development being LEED-certified. Freddie O'Connell, who was the Salemtown officer mentioned below who reported to the association that Mr. Kenner told him he was planning on LEED, responded to the developer's request that, while he acknowledges that it was his own interpretation of the August discussion, he stands by his original report to the association.

So, we are left with two different interpretations of what was said about the original discussion about the rezoning and plans for the development at 5th and Coffee. The issue is not the development itself (as I point out below, there is absolutely nothing wrong with Energy Star). The question remains, "What was communicated?" and that question causes me to want to be more diligent about combing over the details of future requests for rezoning by Kenner McLean in Salemtown. There is nothing sinister about my decision to pay closer attention if the development company seeks mixed use rezoning should they purchase more property. Rezoning requests involve a public process, which includes community feedback. I am simply trying to relate my views on planning and zoning as I always have here. Granted, developers have not always appreciated my views because they do not always share my priorities.

But with this update, you the readers can make your own judgments about what was said. The developer says he never intended nor introduced LEED. The former SNNA president interpreted the developer to say he planned on LEED-certification. You can make up your own mind.


Townhouses being built at the corner of 5th and Coffee seem to have become less green than originally described when developers made their pitch to get community support for rezoning.

Last August, a Salemtown officer met Kenner McLean Development executive Mike Kenner to discuss their proposal and reported back to the association:

While his plans aren't ideal, I do think they overall bring what was equivalent to a vacant lot forward a bit in terms of progress .... project planned to be LEED-certified, reasonable price points, one unit already pre-sold, designed to be owner-occupied (not a guarantee, mind you).

Between August and February of this year, developers apparently backed away from projections of LEED certification, actually choosing "Energy Star-rated" structures instead.

The difference between LEED and Energy Star, according to Green-Buildings.com:

Energy Star was created by the EPA in 1992 and provides commercial building owners with strategic energy management plans designed to benefit both the environment and the owner's bottom line. Energy Star is designed to measure a building's performance, create practical operating (energy use) benchmarks/goals, help monitor performance and also reward energy efficiency ....

LEED operates through the U.S. Green Building Council and takes a much broader "triple bottom line" approach considering people, planet and profit, not just energy use. The triple bottom line factors in the economic, environmental and social issues present throughout the entire building process from concept, design, development and future operation.

LEED is a highly quantified and systematic approach to buildings of all types. Because it has accomplished so much and been so broadly accepted, LEED is becoming the standard by which many green buildings are measured. LEED quantifies a building's performance in the following major categories:
* sustainable sites
* water efficiency
* energy and atmosphere
* materials and resources
* indoor environmental quality
* innovation in design and operations

I emailed Mike Kenner, who lives in West Nashville, the day before yesterday asking for clarification of the LEED vs. Energy Star question, and I have not heard back from him. I also raised the question of LEED in email correspondence on several questions last January without getting a reply on certification.

Besides a winter meeting where we chatted about the possibility of me blogging on his development, Mr. Kenner and I have not had contact since we expressed a difference of opinion on what the North Nashville Community Plan says about developments in Salemtown. However, he did tell me in the past that his company has approached some elderly Salemtown residents along 5th Av N about buying up their properties in order to rezone them for mixed use to make Salemtown more like Germantown.

If they are successful in snagging the properties of long-time residents, and then they seek rezoning (which requires public feedback), I will not forget that the "triple bottom line" build projected in 2011 for 5th and Coffee did not materialize as such in 2012 (there is nothing wrong with Energy Star as an energy saver, but it falls well short of LEED's sustainability principle). Should Kenner McLean achieve future Salemtown acquisitions, will the mixed use they initially propose to motivate rezoning eventually materialize?

Whipped off a quick email to Erica Gilmore before the start of Metro Council

Metro Council begins in a matter of minutes, but I managed just now to get one last minute email away about pending legislation affecting Salemtown:

CM Gilmore: I know that you are going to pass BILL NO. BL2012-141 to rezone the corner of Garfield and 6th Ave N from R6 to RM20-A very easily at third reading tonight. You've done your due diligence by holding a community meeting alongside the two public hearings that this legislation had to go through.  

I continue to have concerns about the potential of the project given the current poor quality of the vacant lots being rezoned. I'm not convinced that the development team cares about our quality of life unless it hits them in the pocketbook. I have attached photos I took Sunday of the blighted lots, including one that clearly shows that other vacant lot owners at this intersection are responsible and keep their lots free of tall grass and brush.

I was wondering if you could do their concerned neighbors like me one more favor after the bill passes by turning to the development team and saying to them "Congratulations. Now go mow the grass."

Regards,
Mike Byrd

UPDATE: CM Gilmore was absent from council tonight. CM Walter Hunt introduced it and CM Megan Barry introduced a substitute on behalf of CM Gilmore. The rezoning is a done deal. No word on when the overgrown scrub at 6th and Garfield will disappear.

Asphalt plant expansion opponents are mobilized

A couple of months ago CM Duane Dominy caused a community firestorm around Franklin Limestone Road by introducing a bill to expand asphalt production among the neighborhoods there. An opposition group was born and here is the latest from their Facebook page:

[May 9, in the wake of a Metro Council meeting that prompted a big community turnout] Don't get too comfortable y'all. There is another Metro Council meeting this month. We need to be ready to go to the Council meeting May 15 at 6pm. Since much wasn't done at the last meeting, I expect the next one to be longer. Get your black or dark blue shirts ready. I have some made up if anyone is interested.

[May 12] Ok as far as I know we are safe from a vote on the Asphalt plant til at least June or July. In the meantime, it would be great if you could talk to your neighbors about this issue. People need to realize that we very easily wind up with 3 asphalt plants within a mile of our homes. If they move to this new location, no one can stop another asphalt plant from going into their old location.

This community-based effort looks well-organized and red-hot. Part of the challenge of following up in the summer is that people go on vacation and get distracted by seasonal activities. Council meetings often fall off the radar. They should not let proponents of the rezoning legislation capitalize on the diversions that summer may bring.

Germantown Cohousing meeting

A few weeks ago I blogged on a cohousing project planned for Germantown. According to a previous newsletter, last week the group sponsoring this project were supposed to have held a meeting for interested parties:

Step by step, the Germantown community is becoming more of a reality. All of the details have been worked out in our contract on the land, and we are just waiting on all of the necessary signatures in order to have a contract ....

Currently, the Construction and Development Committee is interviewing contractors to find someone to do the required site work to make sure that the site will actually work. This happens in the first 60 days after the contract is finalized.

The resident list fluctuates as people try to determine whether the location and the timing are right for them to join this community. Those who are considering are urged to attend the Site Design Workshop, scheduled for May 5-8. The cost will be $1,250 and this cost will go towards equity in your home. 

As yet, I have not been able to track down any info on how the meeting went. Anyone heard anything?

Solid waste transfer facility in Cleveland Park

From the Cleveland Park Neighborhood Association to Cleveland Park residents via the Nashville Neighborhoods elist:

Waste Connections, a solid waste services company, is interested in purchasing the abandoned industrial facility on Apex St. between Cleveland Park and Ellington Parkway. They intend to renovate the building and convert it into a waste transfer facility. Councilman Scott Davis notified both Cleveland Park and Greenwood neighborhood associations because of their close proximity to the facility. Residents of Greenwood and Cleveland Park have met with the leadership of Waste Connections to get information and ask questions about the company's plans. Last Thursday, CPNA invited representatives from Waste Connections to be the main agenda item at our general meeting. CPNA’s leadership has been gathering as much information as possible
about the proposed site and the company, which included traveling to one of the company’s other transfer facilities in Memphis.

We would like to share this information with you at this link. We will continue the conversation at our next general meeting June 14th, location to be announced later (likely the East Precinct). All residents of D5 are welcome.

Salemtown developers allow nearly rezoned properties to blight

The rezoning request for Salemtown properties at 6th and Garfield, which generated sparks on the neighborhood elist a few weeks ago, breezed through a May 1 public hearing with no comment:

[CM Erica] Gilmore requested a hearing from the public on this bill which had been previously advertised. The President asked if anyone desired to be heard for or against the bill and no one came forward to be heard. The President declared the public hearing closed. Ms. Gilmore moved to pass the bill on second reading, which motion was seconded and adopted by a voice vote of the Council.

Without any further objections at the council's public hearing, passage on third reading is a done deal at this point. Even with the way cleared for Roy Dale and Robin York to realized their concept, the vacant property they will build on has deteriorated into an overgrown, vermin-infested, trash-catching, codes-violating mess. Here some photos I took of the southeast corner of 6th and Garfield yesterday:

I have listened to both developers and Salemtown's association president preach to neighbors that the way to clean up vacant lots is to give developers a free, unchecked hand to build. Well, these developers enjoyed objection-free public hearings both at the Planning Commission (which I attended) and the Metro Council (which I did not attend), and yet they still neglected their responsibilities to care for their property. It is now a health risk and quality-of-life nuisance for Salemtown.

Look at the photos and convince me that we are not supposed to question the quality of their product when it is eventually built. We're supposed to believe that they give a flying fling about Salemtown?

A Jane's Walk in Nashville

Some Salemtown leaders organized the first Jane's Walk in Nashville on May 5 in North Nashville. We joined groups in over 30 communities across America who marched to honor one of the more influential activists in community-organizing and urban-planning history. Because of the high chances of rain, short notice and some no-shows our group was of modest size, but we traveled from Morgan Park on 5th Avenue North to Bicentennial Mall State Park on Jefferson Street and 6th Avenue North, where we had a picnic and even managed to chat about Jane Jacobs' legacy for community-based planning and walkable neighborhoods. There was also a frank discussion about the vehicular impact of a Sulphur Dell ballpark on North End neighborhoods. Eventually, the focus became activities for the kids who made the trek too.

On the way home, we waited over 5 minutes to cross back over Jefferson Street, as traffic flew past us at dangerous speeds. And when some drivers did eventually allow us to enter the crosswalk other drivers did not immediately yield, but sped up to try to beat us through the crosswalk. One driver yelled at us to get out of the street. It was a glaring example of how automobile-oriented growth destroys accessibility and complete streets. It expressed Jane's lessons on the irony of building bigger roads that reduce options for other modes of travel and that merely attract even more dangerous car traffic. There is little on Jeff Street between Rosa Parks Boulevard and the Cumberland River that dampens speed or lowers the volume of cars. Sidewalks along that area are narrow and place pedestrians frighteningly close to speeding automobiles.

It was a modest effort, but from small things big things one day come. Hopefully, Jane's Walks in Nashville will grow in future years and bring more attention on the need for complete, welcoming and thoughtfully-planned streets.

Remembering the May 2010 flood: after the long rains the Cumberland River backed up to the edge of Salemtown

Metro aerial photo several hours before the flood's crest in May 2010

Flooded Rosa L. Parks Boulevard