It is interesting math that does not factor in the cumulative effect of trash

Every now and again, council member Emily Evans defies logic and lays a head scratcher on us that introduces new mathematics equations I am not familiar with. For instance, last June, while advocating shrinking Metro Council representation, she claimed merely popping out kids already shrinks a community's influence in government. Hence, have a nuclear family, give up power to influence. Subtraction by addition.

Also in June, in defense of the Tennessean littering our neighborhoods with unsolicited trash every Wednesday, she said this:

It's no more an inconvenience [to pick up rolls of the Tennessean littering yards, sidewalks, and streets] than taking the junk mail out of your mailbox and putting it in the trash.

Actually, if you stack the amount of Tennessean paper you have to throw away every week on top of the junk mail you discard every week it equals more garbage, more drag on your own time than if the Tennessean never darkened your door again. The extra burden is on someone else to clean the mess if the Tennessean will not do it themselves.

We now hear that the "newsroom of the future" is a more "metrics-based" project of meeting customer demand rather than reporting facts that might shed light on events readers might not otherwise discover. In other words the Tennessean is flipping itself to be an advertising circular rather than a news vehicle. So, we are more inconvenienced now by more junk mail, the main difference being that Tennessean junk mail is in plain sight, not hidden in our mailboxes.

I fail to understand how adding to the pile of unwanted junk somehow equals "no more" in Emily Evans' new math.

RePublic charter schools called me at work

I typically get no personal calls on my land line office phone, because I do not give that phone number out for personal reasons except in urgent and emergent situations. For instance, I give the number to my daughter's elementary school in case they need to call me and cannot reach me at my personal cell or land lines.

After several years with my current employer, I may have received a couple of phone calls from my wife on occasions were I forgot to power up my cell, but I have never received a solicitation phone call at work until the end of last month.

I received a call at work in September from a recruiter from the Nashville Academy of Computer Science part of a network of privatized charter schools called RePublic Schools co-founded by former Obama campaigner Ravi Gupta. The recruiter invited me to enroll my daughter in his academy. When I asked him how he got my work number he told me that his institution received parent contact information from Metro Nashville Public Schools.

Our daughter has not been a public school student in about a year and a half for reasons I have explained. When I gave MNPS my work contact information it was with the understanding that our primary number was our home land line, but that the work number was an "in case of emergency" number. Obviously, there was no longer any need for MNPS to even have my work number, given our previous understanding and the fact that she is now a private school student.

So, why is Metro Nashville Public Schools giving contact information, on which I have placed restrictions, to private institutions to sell me enrollment? Does this not undermine the goal of having sensitive, restricted phone numbers available when extreme situations demand contacting parents by any means necessary? When public school parents find out that MNPS casually hands out work phone numbers without their consent, are they not less likely to share that information with MNPS (thus making contact more difficult)? Should MNPS be in the position of using public resources to manage a marketing database with sensitive contact info for private corporations?

We left MNPS because of the creeping resource drain of privatization, which now seems to be in full flower. The phone call dripped with irony.

Acquisitive school reformers seem fond of using terms like "disrupt," which they insist challenges entrenched bureaucracy and regulations to do something different in education. They label what they do "innovation." Yet, it is clear to me that Nashville Academy of Computer Science is also willing to disrupt the lives individual parents to hawk their product. How innovative is that?

And their partner is MNPS, which seems fine with luring us back to a system where public education funding is given away to private corporations in exchange for getting a few kids to college and careers instead of educating everyone.

Update on last night's important Salemtown meeting with 3 developers

Monday night's monthly Salemtown Neighbors business meeting was enlightening if for no other reason than to witness the contrast between responsible developers and detached developers.

I should start off by clarifying and correcting information in yesterday's post announcing the developers' appearance in our community: only two of the proposals seek to rezone for Specific Plans. The third, which did not have any information on yesterday is not seeking any rezoning, but building according to what the zoning currently allows. The zoning allows for medium density with either single or two-family dwellings (as in duplexes).

And I want to start with the non-SP first, precisely because the development team did not have to appear before our association to get feedback on what they have planned for the 1700 block of 4th Av, N., but they appeared anyway in order to keep us informed. Got it? They can build what they want within the parameters set by land development and planning guidelines, but they still chose to seek Salemtown support for their plan.

Their plan for duplexes looks attractive and the elevations they showed appear to fit within the character of the community in my opinion, but what stood out singularly to me was their acknowledgment more than once that the neighborhood has collectively been unhappy with what recently passes for new infill in Salemtown. One of their members, Grant Hammond, mentioned that he wanted to take his group's project in a different direction along the lines of how more responsible developers have treated the association before the recent building wave got started. He expressed openness to continuing to meet with SNNA officers, passing along details and meeting with the association when necessary.

It really was a breath of fresh air, especially because he was not required to commit to any of that.

And we have already seen how developers who do not strive to go beyond what they are merely required to do take advantage of Salemtown.

Speaking of which, Aerial Development also appeared at an SNNA business meeting years after their plan for 1706 4th Av. N. was first introduced (recently delayed due to height details that were inconsistent with Salemtown's conservation overlay). To her credit, Aerial owner Britnie Turner (who thanks to the fawning Tennessean seems to enjoy more of a connection with the Salemtown name than most of us long-time residents do) at least showed up and tried to defend her company. However, her presentation consisted of the same series of defenses that CM Erica Gilmore employed at the September SNNA meeting. She insisted that Aerial relies on Metro Planning to do the communicating with the neighborhood and that her team did everything that they were legally required to do.

Incidentally, Aerial is one of those developers that have been the object of criticism in Salemtown. I have heard from several neighbors who were unhappy about quick tear downs and the disjunction between Aerial's towering roof-top-hot-tub builds and community character. I have also heard from at least one Aerial buyer who is not at all satisfied with the way he has been treated by the developers. Like Mr. Hammond pointed out, there has been criticism of recent developments in Salemtown. My eyes were on Ms. Turner when he said that.

Mr. Hammond's act was a hard one to follow, given that he was not required to contact Salemtown Neighbors and discuss his plan. However, the contrast between his group and Aerial Development could not have been more stark. Ms. Turner could not muster effective damage control to save her life. She did her own company a disservice in continuing to fall back on the line that she did everything the regulations require. She promised in the future she would contact the association president, but the impression I got in chats with other folk after the meeting is that she has a lot to prove to Salemtown going forward if she wants to have a constructive relationship.

There is some confusion over the name of Aerial's project. Metro Planning calls it "4th Avenue Cottages." Aerial presented it last night as "Salemtown Square." That seems to answer the question I asked last July after Salemtown Square websites appeared: where and how would they be? After I blogged in July, the websites (including Facebook and Instagram pages) were taken down. Then the main website came back up in a different form. Then it disappeared again. All links to a free-standing online presence appear to be broken at this point. Aerial's main page says nothing, as I write this, about Salemtown Square. Communication does not seem to be the company's oyster.

There was an offbeat, nearly cringe-worthy moment last night where Ms. Turner spoke pejoratively of another neighborhood Aerial had worked with. An SNNA member asked why, given the loads of money developers take away from sales, they cannot give back to services (like schools) that support the neighborhoods in which they build? Ms. Turner responded that Aerial had made a big donation to a fund at the request of another neighborhood, but then the neighborhood "whined" that it was not the fund they preferred. What an undiplomatic, unnecessary characterization of what another neighborhood did. What is to stop us now from assuming that she goes to other neighborhood meetings and talks about how much we "whine" about expecting developers to communicate with us above and beyond what Metro Planning requires?

Between last night's contrast of responsible developer and uncommunicative developer was the third development team who are proposing a Specific Plan of 7 detached single family homes across properties at 1614 and 1616 4th Av N. While they did not make the same dramatic move that Mr. Hammond's development team did, they still showed better than Aerial since they took the initiative before acquiring these properties to meet with the neighborhood association.

Their SP requires incorporation of community feedback, and I hope that we can make productive recommendations. The properties are currently zoned for commercial use and I stand with those at this point who argue that residential rezoning makes more sense than commercial or mixed-use given that we do not control what kind of businesses would go in if it stayed commercial (the current resident has lived in a trailer on one of the properties for 30 years). The properties sit right behind the Fehr School building, and frankly I would not want to see some types of businesses go in right behind an educational facility, near a residential intersection. Salemtown already has a zoned commercial intersection at Buchanan and 5th Av, N, and that seems quite enough to me, especially as we already rely on Germantown's walkable businesses. I do not see any commercial enterprises clamoring to compete with this proposal for these properties, so what is the point in waiting for commerce that may never materialize? As long as residential plans meet with our expectations, we should move forward.

The 1614/16 team agreed to continue to communicate with our association, especially as plans continue to develop.

Overall, I took last night's meeting with developers as a positive sign that builders are going to be more responsible and communicative going forward. I hope that this trend continues.

Opportunity for Salemtown residents to influence three building plans tonight

According to Salemtown Neighbors president, Freddie O'Connell, tonight's association business meeting will entertain proposals from three developers on Specific Plan rezoning requests under consideration at the municipal level. Since all three seek Specific Plans, they are all required to incorporate community feedback consistent with neighborhood character into plans before getting final approval from Metro Council.

The first proposal is one that generated controversy and argument between SNNA and council member Erica Gilmore at the last association meeting. Members questioned whether CM Gilmore was interested in including Salemtown in on rezoning requests that affected them. CM Gilmore brashly questioned whether SNNA legitimately represented Salemtown. Of course, I felt compelled afterwards to rejoin Erica Gilmore, who seems blissfully unaware of her own contradictions.

That disputed proposal comes from Aerial Development who has their own track record of destabilizing neighborhoods. Aerial is lately being sued by a former partner for allegedly failing to share the profits for their projects on 5th Av., North. Aerial's proposal before SNNA is called "4th Avenue Cottages."

Aerial's plan.

Metro Planning's development tracker gives the full details:

A request for final site plan approval for property located within the Salemtown Neighborhood Conservation Overlay District at 1706 4th Avenue North, approximately 175 feet north of Garfield Street, zoned SP (0.40 acres), to permit six single-family detached units, requested by Civil Site Design Group, applicant; Aerial Investment Properties, LLC, owner.

Residents were particularly upset that CM Gilmore has spoken for Aerial on the cottages development without consulting them. They were also angry that Aerial pushed ahead without consideration for the conservation overlay passed recently. Metro Planning staff recommended approval of the development because it fits with their own higher density goals.

Are the 4th Avenue Cottages already on the market? (click-on to enlarge)

One would think that Aerial should be in full PR drive damage-control tonight if last month's meeting is any indication of popular dissatisfaction. Hopefully, they will be open to listening. The issue here is not that urban residents will not accept higher density, but that we do not appreciate being blind-sided on rezoning requests that should have had our input.

Another proposal under consideration tonight concerns properties about half-a-block south of the Aerial real estate. I have perceived no unpleasant, unnecessary drama about this proposal as yet, but little is known about it beyond what Metro Planning divulged to the community:

According to Metro Planning's development tracker, here are the complete details of the request to rezone on this property:

A request to rezone from CS to SP-R zoning for properties located at 1614 and 1616 4th Avenue North, approximately 115 feet south of Garfield Street,  (0.4 acres), to permit up to seven detached residential dwelling units, requested by Dale & Associates, applicant; T & J Holdings IV, LLC, owner.

I am curious to know why the developers are proposing seven instead of six homes across two properties. Are they trying to squeeze as many people as possible on real estate to maximize their profits or is this a reasonable request? Given what we learned about flooding along 4th Av in 2010, I'll be interested to see what their plans are for dealing with stormwater run-off.

There is no plan for 1614/16 4th Av. up yet on the Planning's website, which puts the neighborhood at a distinct disadvantage to developers as usual. But if you want a sample of real estate Dale & Associates (owner is former CM Roy Dale) develops, especially in Salemtown, I've blogged on several. Maybe we will learn a host of details tonight and the developers will express an openness to future meetings if needed.

I don't have any details on the third SP proposal to be considered tonight. Surprise, surprise.


UPDATE: Jump to my follow-up with clarification and correction of the information above.

Metro Council hands Gulch businesses a new 700-foot luxury sidewalk at the price of over $25,000 per foot

Do you feel connected now, Nashville? You should, because the Metro Council authorized Mayor Karl Dean to spend $18,000,000 on a sidewalk ("The Gulch Pedestrian Bridge") under the pretense of "connecting Nashville." If you live in Madison or Antioch or West Nashville and you don't feel connected, well maybe ye place little faith in the words of 2015 mayoral candidate and at-Large CM Megan Barry, who defended her vote by saying that "connecting Nashville" is a "necessity." Dropping $18,000,000 on a sidewalk in a neighborhood that has sidewalks is now "a necessity."

Here is how CM Barry and everyone else voted last night with absolutely no debate for that much money to spend:

Last June during debate on an unrelated charter question, CM Ronnie Steine said:

We are as a body amongst the most responsive elected officials in the country, and that's one of the things that's special about Nashville .... this council is the great weather vane of this city. Every possible opinion in this county/city is reflected in this body at one time or another .... All positions and opinions are heard .... If you look at the quality of work in this council, it's high quality. We get hammered because we agree with the mayor sometimes .... When we agree with him on an issue .., we're not rubber stamps. We're all just reflective of what this community is working on.

Is a luxury sidewalk that connects the Gulch to downtown entertainment venues reflective of what Nashville-Davidson County is working on? Or do our communities advocate spreading the wealth equitably so that sidewalks in all communities benefit from the Metro tax base?

Keep in mind that the council approved the Gulch bridge plan only after Karl Dean committed to spending $17,000,000 in other neighborhoods on sidewalks. Not $17,000,000 per neighborhood, but spread out between competing neighborhoods. That is interesting math: for one 700 foot sidewalk, the Gulch gets $18,000,000. Everyone else gets to fight over and divvy up $17,000,000.

It seems to me that the Metro Council deserves all of the "hammering" it gets for rubber stamping the mayor because it does it dramatically more than "sometimes." Otherwise, please show me a vote against one of Karl Dean's major capital projects that either CM Steine or CM Barry has taken. With the controversy and contentiousness over the Gulch pedestrian bridge, with the blatant inequality of spending more on downtown infrastructure than in places that do not even have sidewalks, these council members had cover to vote independently, but still they chose to rubber stamp Hizzoner.

Make no mistake: they're Deanpendent.

Being a council progressive means shielding the corporate polluters

False reporting? New anti-litter ordinance won't prohibit that yellow roll of spam litter.

Less than 24 hours ago WSMV reporter Patrick McMurtry contacted me to get my views on a council ordinance to regulate the delivery of non-subscription materials to homes (like when the Tennessean throws their "free Wednesday edition", which is full of advertising circulars). He asked me to call him. I reminded Mr. McMurtry via Twitter that the ordinance to discourage the Tennessean from littering our neighborhoods was defeated in June.

I didn't blog about the ordinance in June because I was more concerned about the move to shrink the council. That is where I put all the writing energy that I had. Several years ago I blogged at length about a similar ordinance that was designed to regulate the proliferation of news racks in neighborhoods, so readers can imagine my response to the latest news media hijinks.

Mr. McMurtry's request prompts me to return to the question of whether the Tennessean should be allowed to litter neighborhoods like Salemtown with paper that few people read let alone subscribe to. In June, the Metro Council voted 21-10 to kill the proposal that would have enforced our requests not to have the circulars thrown every Wednesday at our homes. Almost farcically, the council's bill would have placed stupid demands on people like you and me to stop the Tennessean litter: we would have to send our request to Gannett by certified letter and we would have to swear out an affidavit with Metro Codes that the Tennessean is violating the agreement. Who should have to do that?

In June, the Tennessean responded to the bill by making some "concessions" to the council. Those concessions included two phone numbers given to each council member providing a direct line to managers in the circulation department who would see that constituent opt-outs were being honored. Why should we need to lobby our council members to get the Tennessean to do the right thing? Again, it's adding extra steps that many people don't have time to take, especially with unresponsive council members.

Another Tennessean concession was that they would audit the distribution and opt-out lists to make sure that delivery people were only delivering to subscribers. The paper also promised to ride around with delivery people and clean up litter that had previously been left. As far as I'm concerned, those concessions never materialized. I can remember at least 6 deliveries of the "free edition" deposited on the sidewalk in front of my home since June, none of which were cleaned up by the Tennessean. All of the editions were kicked out into the street. Over time 2 were pulverized by auto traffic. The remaining editions were picked up out of the street by a volunteer last week before Germantown's Oktoberfest. Gannett/The Tennessean is not keeping their promises; the same promises 21 council members used as an excuse to defeat the ordinance.

And look at the list of progressives who voted against attempts to discourage litter in neighborhoods: Ronnie Steine, Lonell Matthews, Brady Banks, Scott Davis, Peter Westerholm, Anthony Davis, Burkley Allen, Erica Gilmore, Jason Holleman, and (last, but not least) Megan Barry. CM Barry spoke out against the ordinance, but she did not focus on the question of stopping litter in neighborhoods. Instead, she zeroed in on the bill sponsor whom she alleged was trying to force the Tennessean to write an article:

The conversation has led to some really good things that the Tennessean is doing. Having said that, I … think that this is an overreach and I am incredibly uncomfortable that we as a body would ever compel a newspaper to write a story. I heard a colleague of ours earlier tonight talk about the fact that he had actually lived some place at one point where the government could tell newspapers what to write and that was called “a dictatorship,” and I know that that’s not the intention of the sponsor here but tonight I am going to go ahead and say, “Let’s just put this to rest” and I’m going to vote against it.

On the heels of Ms. Barry's comments, CM Fabian Bedne rose to say that he was the one who related his experiences of living under a dictatorship, but he added that CM Barry's use of his own comments against this anti-litter ordinance was "missing the point." While he wholeheartedly disagreed with forcing a newspaper to write a story, he would vote for the ordinance to protect neighborhoods from "trash and litter". Phil Claiborne, the sponsor of the bill, added that he was not trying to force a newspaper story.

To CM Barry's clipped and obfuscating remarks that the Tennessean is doing "really good things," I would respond that the Tennessean has done absolutely nothing "really good" from where I sit in Salemtown. Again, folks, Megan Barry is a 2015 mayoral candidate who claims to be a progressive. How can a progressive stand with a big corporate polluter against the wishes of a community? We are getting a glimpse of what kind of mayor Megan Barry would be.

Before closing, I want to circle back around to WSMV's request for an interview. Patrick McMurtry told me that the ordinance "is back on the agenda." That is not exactly true. The ordinance on the agenda now would regulate any advertising materials except the Tennessean's. The bill's sponsor, Sheri Weiner, believes that controlling some advertising is better than none. And yet, the biggest litter nuisance at my house is the Tennessean. CM Weiner was absent from the June vote, but her bill is toothless on arrival and would actually give the Tennessean a monopoly on un-subscribed advertising litter. The council had its chance to regulate litter and they failed.

By the way, I never called the reporter back, I have better things to do with my time than waste it on a bill that would not make a dent in the Tennessean's misbehavior or on a reporter who does nothing to hold the 21 council members who voted no in June accountable for enabling the Tennessean's misbehavior. After seeing Patrick McMurtry's story, I have no regrets. My time was well spent doing something else.

Nashville Sounds act like they believe they are entitled to keep stakeholders (and neighbors) at arm's length

Nashville Scene sports reporter, J.R. Lind, has some insightful analysis on attempts to rebrand the local minor league baseball affiliate, Nashville Sounds. Of interest to those of us living in North Nashville are J.R.'s observations about how the entire recoloring and relogoing move continues to snub our neighborhoods:

Despite all the bloviating about the historical importance of he Sulphur Dell site, the Sounds have done very little to actually emphasize the history they are trying to co-opt. Most glaringly, the new stadium won't bear the name "Sulphur Dell" — naming rights' deals are a reality, I get it, but is it impossible to have called the new ballyard "First Tennessee Park at Sulphur Dell"? And now the team's color scheme will allude to a tourist strip more than a mile away rather than the neighborhood that's in the shadow of the stadium, the neighborhoods that are being directly affected (for good or ill) by the stadium?

Why, it's almost like "Jefferson Street" bears some kind of connotation the Sounds don't want to be a part of, even though the long-shuttered R&B and jazz clubs along Jefferson were Nashville sounds too, even if they weren't the Nashville Sound™.

It's as if the North Nashville neighborhoods that will spread out beyond the outfield walls of First Tennessee Park are something the Sounds are trying to ignore or are ashamed of. Instead, the Sounds want to further bury the history of the site and use the neon on Broadway (or its apparently-ubiquitous burnt orange) to market the team.

So who are they actually marketing to? Touristy bros and bachelorette parties for whom Lower Broad is the be-all and end-all of Nashville and suburbanites who are far more comfortable with exposing their families to Broadway with its puking twentysomethings at honky tonks than whatever they think happens in North Nashville.

I have argued through this rebranding process (starting with council approval of the ballpark and ground breaking) that I believe that we should be judging team ownership by their actions toward the community.

They lobbied council for a new park without ever dealing directly with neighbors in community meetings. Frank Ward, who is the most visible bigshot of the ownership team, referred to engaging the community as "politics", which he would not participate in (so, he hired a lobbyist to do his dirty work). And we should never forget the infamous history of mistreatment and neglect of predominantly African American, working class North Nashville, which carries over today in more subtle ways. The shameful handling of the community planning process by the Sounds and Metro government is a legacy of that history as far as I am concerned.

So, yes, Jefferson Street absolutely does have cultural connotations that the Sounds do not want to be a part of.

"If you're leaning toward not having us, just give us a heads up
so we don't lose out on something else." - Brewers GM Doug Melvin
Photo: Melvin (far right) at Sounds'
ballpark groundbreaking last January.

In other transactions, Sounds' owners treated their now former parent major league team shabbily as part of the rebrand process. The Milwaukee Brewers waited patiently over the span of a decade for the Sounds to come to an agreement with Metro on a ballpark deal. The Sounds gave no indication that they would flip affiliation to the Oakland Athletics, but abruptly did so last month. During the span of Brewers-Sound affiliation, Oakland had 1 more playoff appearance than the Brewers did. There has been grumbling in Sacramento, Oakland's previous affiliate about declining game attendance numbers. The Sacramento River Cats preferred to go with the San Francisco Giants (which should leave Nashvillians wondering, "If Oakland is such an attractive club, then, why, Sacramento, why?")

For his part, Brewers General Manager Doug Melvin, a man with a storied reputation for player development (which has been great for his minor league affiliates over the years), says that he offered the Sounds exhibition games and financial incentives to keep the affiliation going, but he was ignored by the Sounds' brain trust.

Parenthetically, the minor league team seems intent on hitching to the celebrity of Oakland GM Billy Beane, who was portrayed by Brad Pitt in 2011's critically-acclaimed and popular film, "Moneyball". Billy Beane also has an outstanding track record on player development. However, in 2014 Mr. Beane acted more like he was the GM for the New York Yankees, trading top-flight talent in the Oakland system, like Billy McKinney, Addison Russell, and Dan Straily away for rent-a-players and win-now major leaguers. Despite giving away the farm, Oakland did not win with those trades. In fact, their season-ending collapse was one of the most spectacular in the history of their division. Billy Beane may also have traded away Nashville's future success and he came away with not a single postseason win for his trouble.

But boosters of the flip to Oakland act like this means Nashville is going to see more of Brad Pitt around the city now. We're more likely to see some mediocre baseball first. We shall see if that will be enough for ticket holders.

In all of this I see the same pattern: the Nashville Sounds ignore stakeholders affected by their self-absorbed financial decisions. They seem to make insular decisions and only pull in the powerful people who can activate the plans. This does not bode well for neighborhoods near the ballpark like Salemtown.

Back to the Nashville Scene piece that prompted this post: after J.R. Lind posted his analysis yesterday, Jason Franke, the Sounds' Vice President of Corporate Partnerships and Marketing tweeted snark at it:

Not only do Frank Ward and the Nashville Sounds act like they believe that they are entitled to do anything Metro Nashville powers-that-be and minor league rules will allow them to do, but they act like they believe they are entitled to unquestioning support from "partners," even in the news media, where a different set of ethics rule. Mr. Franke's response to the Nashville Scene was manipulative and arrogant.

There is not much the community can do to knock team insolence down a couple of notches (which it does indeed deserve), but we should brace ourselves for future dealings with the Nashville Sounds over quality-of-life issues that they generate in neighborhoods proximate to First Tennessee Park.

Now dumpsters are tiny houses, too.

Last summer I got into an email rumpus with a developer due to his lack of satisfaction with a blog post I wrote responding to a tabloid piece promoting his "tiny houses". To be clear, I did not label his builds "tiny houses". The fawning tabloid did. Rather than direct his anger at the reporter, he trained it on me for suggesting, and reasonably so, that developers ought to build a diverse stock of homes (beyond tiny ones) to attract all kinds of individuals, couples and families to neighborhoods.

He questioned my manhood, called me "delusional" and suggested that I require a lot more reading on the hot new trend of building small homes. The discussion ended with his last word.

Then I saw this article shared on the developer's Facebook page last July. It is on converting shipping containers into homes:

I can see young families with newborns and toddlers pining now for the confines of cargo containers.

But if we are truly going to be non-conformist in our bid for scaling our homes tinier, let's not stop with shipping containers. Let's do what this divorced Austin professor did and plan to live in dumpsters to prove the point. If the Millennial generation prefers tiny homes, there is no reason to believe they would reject domestic life in dumpsters. Right?

For me and mine, we will take the modestly-sized home in which we fit. We will also welcome developers to Salemtown who recognize that a commitment to diversity demands marketing a diverse housing stock. The idea of innovation ought not to be reduced to a fickle, headlong pursuit of what is hot. Tomorrow dumpsters may no longer be hot homes, but merely trash receptacles.


UPDATE: Another housing industry merchant is preaching the benefits of tiny houses as products, when it is not clear whether he would choose to live in them as a way of life. Richard Courtney also bemoans "the pressure" Metro Council members get from constituents:

I regularly meet with the brilliant songwriter Layng Martine, Jr., and he recently visited his sons in the Northwest. They were marveling at the excitement in the design of the tiny houses and shared that one actually was a treehouse.

Those in the know feel the zoning issue in Nashville may make this impossible, since Metro Council members are under so much pressure from their constituents to stop development.

In my opinion Mr Courtney protests too much about the process or he at least jumps too hastily to conclusions about why constituents oppose developments. Some may oppose them for the reason that he mentions: they don't prefer higher density. Some may oppose them because they would prefer balance and diversity in neighborhoods that could include high and moderate density homes. Some may oppose because they want to check the predominate influence developers and realtors and their lawyers in the planning process. In this light, Mr. Courtney seems to be reducing the democratic process to knee-jerk NIMBYism; a pure fallacy on his part. Some may oppose because they see real flaws in the planning process and want those flaws addressed before they agree to these drastic changes.

All of these are valid reasons to disagree with Mr. Courtney (and Michael Kenner) that our neighborhoods need to be blanketed with tiny homes. He also should be more honest that, beyond the merits or principle of his argument, he stands to financially benefit from more people paying to live on single plots of land.

Overall, there are many legitimate reasons to oppose tiny house rezoning requests, not the least of which is the point that there is some hypocrisy in the building industry prescribing zoning that their members do not choose for their own neighborhoods.

Nashville's most whipped, domesticated Metro Council ever

The Metro Council passed the Mayor's plan for an $18 million Gulch sidewalk on second reading tonight without a lick of the resistance they showed last winter when the proposal was expressed to them in other terms.

Besides the $2 million spending gap, there is little difference between plan 1 and plan 2. In plan 1, Mayor Karl Dean was going to give his friends in the downtown business class $16 million from everyone else's infrastructure funds to build the Gulch bridge. After council members pointed out that they need their sidewalk funds because they don't have enough sidewalks, Hizzoner came back with plan 2 a few weeks ago: $18 million collected from Gulch businesses would pay for the bridge, meaning that the money would sheltered from broad use (like to defray the cost of sidewalks in other neighborhoods). As I said before, it's a shell game played with tax money that belongs to all of us, not just to downtown businesses.

Either way, Karl Dean reserved his preferential option for the rich at the expense of the working classes who generate the wealth Davidson County enjoys.

He threw the challengers in the Metro Council some bones, trotting out his Finance Director to say that they had put more money for sidewalks elsewhere in the Mayor's budget. and would do so until the Mayor's last term is over.

His term is over a year from now. How many sidewalks can he build us in a year? And how many will not be built that could have been built in the past 8 years?

Mayor Dean bristled last April at suggestions that he might be a lame duck. Just to prove it he dangled a few sidewalks in front of this council that he should have built years ago, Naturally, they folded like a cheap suit. Maybe there was arm twisting. Who knows? I doubt it took much pain to get this project through this compliant council.

It was remarkable to watch tonight. Much like the passage of ballpark proposal a few months ago: moving quickly to minimize questions and to steamroll any attempts to even express "no" by recorded vote. Vice Mayor Diane Neighbors, ever Karl Dean's catalyst, asked only for a voice vote, which does not register no votes.

Only a handful of CMs made their opinions clear, and one was mayoral candidate, Megan Barry. In unrelated events, Ms. Barry got in touch with her inner populist last month and declined to attend a campaign debate due to its posh price tag:

I was disappointed to learn yesterday that this forum will be a high-dollar fundraiser for the Nashville Business Coalition PAC instead of being an open forum with a diverse
audience. While I understand the need to cover costs of the event, I believe that Nashville needs to be an inclusive city where our community can join with business leaders to openly discuss the issues that matter to everyone.

Regretfully, I must decline to attend this event unless an effort is made to make the forum more accessible to the hard-working men and women who have helped to grow our economy and enabled our businesses to thrive.

I find it outstanding that CM Barry is finally standing up to the Nashville Business Coalition rather than appearing before them at beck-and-call as she did during her council campaigns. However, declining an appearance at a PAC's forum demands little risk. Candidates decline to appear at forums all the time. Where is the risk?

If Megan Barry truly intended to lay it on the line against Nashville's exclusive elites, she could have spoken against and voted against at least one of Mayor Karl Dean's big-ticket capital projects. But to the very end she refuses to do so. From the convention center to stormwater fee structure to Fairgrounds redevelopment, Megan Barry has persisted in her support of the wealthy over "hard-working men and women." (And the wording of her letter above is troubling: working people do not simply "help" someone else grow the economy. Their labor is the primary cause of the wealth that gives people like Karl Dean more power.) She did not depart from that path regarding the Gulch bridge.

So, how did Megan Barry justify an $18 million sidewalk this evening? By saying that "connecting Nashville" (Mayor Dean's slogan to generate public support for the bill) is a "necessity". Well, of course, connecting our communities is a necessity, but the Gulch bridge does not do that. It connects niche luxury hotels in the Gulch to tourist venues downtown with terraced seating and lots of plants. It is another tourist stop in a city of tourist stops. In places far from stylized downtown chic, parents have to walk their kids to and from school without sidewalks dangerously close to auto traffic. So, excuse me if I do not shed a tear over out-of-towners forced to cross the Gulch on Demonbreun Street's existing sidewalks. Excuse me if I do not buy bogus claims that a lone $18 million Gulch sidewalk helps Madison families. Megan Barry's insinuation that the Gulch bridge meets the pedestrian needs for more transit options across Nashville is false. To call it a piece of a larger "transportation policy" is not grounded in the reality of Nashville politics.

Her claims sound a lot like the Mayor's justification for building bus rapid transit only for west and east Nashville, while promising that neighborhoods north and south would one day--in some great, gettin' up morning--win their own BRT. And we believe that snake oil, don't we, North Nashville? Likewise, why should we ever believe that a new pedestrian bridge for the Gulch would serve anyone but the people who can afford to live and to lodge there?

As long as she rejects any resistance to Karl Dean's policies, Megan Barry's claims to aim for a more inclusive city will never materialize. She has tied her fortunes to his.

In the larger picture, CM Barry's vocal support for Karl Dean is symbolic of this docile Metro Council, which looks pathetic as a representative body at times. They do not act boldly. They do not take chances. They never ever lay it all on the line at the risk of great loss. So now we're going to get a token number of sidewalks that Mayor Dean should have built (and more) since day 1 of his first term.

Promising sidewalks to the council was the right thing to do years ago. Now it just looks cynical. And the council along with it. For the inconvenience, we are getting an $18 million bridge that most of us cannot enjoy unless we actually buy the con that downtown belongs to and benefits us "inclusively". Thus, the bridge is already built on a trickle-down lie.


UPDATE:  Megan Barry has been voted "Best Current Council Member" at the Nashville Scene. Maybe there is some pride in being the best member of one of the worst representative bodies Nashville has had.

Look, y'all. He is first and foremost "The Conventions and Visitors Mayor."

To call it "Mayor's Office of Neighborhoods" ("MOON") is inaccurate given what it promotes.

An open letter to council member Erica Gilmore

Dear Erica Gilmore,

Last night's Salemtown association meeting certainly could have gone better. Not that we do not need to our council member to show up to our meetings. I certainly wish you had attended more during your term on the council.

But last night we got more of the same that we have seen from you in recent years, CM Gilmore. All you seem interested in now is doing the absolute minimum that you are required to do instead of going a few extra steps for ordinary constituents who are not big finance cash cows. We were not asking you to go an extra mile like the Mayor is in getting you to sponsor ballpark and luxury sidewalk resolutions.

Some of us merely want you to keep a neighborhood association president in the loop about Specific Plan requests. That's not unfair or unreasonable. SPs call for community input and yet you seem to be bent on minimizing community input.

It was not always like this. I remember early in your first term you made efforts to stay in contact with us regardless of where we were located in Salemtown. Remember the failed "Ardelia Park" development? That was blocks away from where I live, and yet you encouraged me to attend the community meeting on it.

What a difference six years makes. On Aerial Development's latest proposal you could have done the decent thing and asked developer Britnie Turner to confer with the president of Salemtown Neighbors last spring before seeking approval. Notifications would have gone out from there, which would have forestalled the criticism I heard last night regarding your lack of communication.

Instead, you lectured us on Monday and repeated ad nauseum that "communication is a two-way street". You never gave us a chance to go down that road. You let Metro Planning send out the post cards on a community meeting to residents within several hundred feet of the property, which covers a small geographical area as well as your proverbial ass. It gives you the ability to say that you did everything the law requires to notify the community.

But are the rest of us who are affected by this development supposed to have a special sixth sense to know when a developer approaches you to formulate a resolution that requires community input? Is that really realistic, given the information and access advantages developers enjoy over neighbors?

Nope. You never gave us a chance to go down the road. And frankly you did not come down that street yourself. Relying on the planning department alone is not good enough; as if it were not made sufficiently clear from all of the feedback you got back at last night's association business meeting (which Aerial chose not to attend). Planners have no skin in the Salemtown game.

Moreover, your subtle criticism that communication is a two-way street is bad faith. I receive global email blasts from you regularly on subjects that I may or may not be interested in. Sometimes those blasts contain rezoning and development information or information about community meetings. In 2014 I have been notified of a meeting on Jefferson Street HUD development and on the meetings concerning the new ballpark. But I received nothing directly from you on a specific plan in Salemtown. Metro planners like these plans because they want to see higher density everywhere regardless of questions other departments have about differences with the contexts of neighborhoods.

Aerial's plan promotes higher density, but it has also sent up red flags due to its differences with Salemtown context, especially since the property falls within Salemtown's conservation overlay.

So, why now do you expect me to keep tabs on this under-the-radar proposal when you have made efforts to notify me about others?

But you really hit an all time low last night when you resorted to insinuating that Salemtown Neighbors--which celebrates its 10 year anniversary next February as Salemtown's first association--is not representative of the views of Salemtown. You do not even know that to be true, because you never gave the association the chance to participate in the community discussion about this development. Your inference was spurious.

That kind of foolishness undermines the credibility of our own process, and ironically, since you have done enough to undermine your own. You were not going to hold a community meeting on the ballpark proposal until a fellow council member asked you in open meeting to do so. You stood in front of the council and vowed that your constituents opposed any requirements put on the Nashville Sounds ownership as part of a ballpark agreement, after a number of us argued to the contrary. You ignored requests to hold public meetings on the Metro Water toxic dump site near Salemtown and punted any advocacy you could do for the community to PR specialists at MWS.

For you, CM Gilmore, to try to cast aspersions on Salemtown Neighbors as if we have not over the years tried to represent fairly the interest of the neighborhood amounts to unbridled hypocrisy. Your lack of broader advocacy on the Aerial proposal indicates to me that you have given up representing all of us. The fact that you wrote a letter to the Metro Historic Zoning Commission asking them to re-hear Aerial's proposal, after the developers failed to appear before that body, shows with whom you have cast your lot, and it is not with Salemtown. The quick approval timeline last spring indicates an interest in minimizing community feedback. And you have the gall to suggest that we do not strive to be representative.

I understand that at this point you are likely just playing out the string of days in your last term as our CM. I understand that house flippers with some cash make more difference than voters do in that context. Even so, neighbors in Salemtown ought to have at least as much credibility with you as the outside developers who make no bones about wanting "to tear up some real estate" to generate more wealth to take out of the community:

Things could have gone better last night, CM Gilmore. Unfortunately, you missed your chance to make it better last spring.

Sincerely,
Mike Byrd

The Gulch's suspended luxury sidewalk--reanimiated by a new funding scheme--is still a bridge too far

It's back. The Mayor's audaciously opulent pedestrian bridge--which is actually a terraced sidewalk suspended across Gulch train tracks by cables--is back. And it now has a higher price tag than it did last winter (up to $18 million from $16 million), when the proposal went down in flames in Metro Council due to Hizzoner's attempt to raid the funds dedicated to bridge and sidewalk maintenance, endangering the upkeep and installment of routine sidewalks everywhere else. Jerry Maynard jumped in to request a deferral of the bill, which probably averted an embarrassing trouncing for the Mayor. Reluctant project sponsor, Erica Gilmore, agreed to defer.

Rather than relying on the council this time, Hizzoner took his case straight to The Gulch's business and residential community under the banner "Connect Nashville." At last count, the Gulch had 2,000 residents, mind you, but somehow connecting them to downtown constitutes "Connect[ing] Nashville".

On a parallel note: the Mayor skipped a packed townhall meeting last month in North Nashville called "Nashville Unites" regarding police militarism and brutality in African American communities. That Jeff St. meeting was focused on bringing Nashville together for positive change. But the Mayor could not make time for that meeting. Somehow he made time for the "Connect Nashville" meeting, despite the fact it had nothing to do with bringing Nashville together. He would rather connect than unite.

He always has been a risk-averse Mayor more focused on new and neat capital projects than on messy interaction with dissatisfied constituents. And his comments indicated that he was right at home at The Gulch pep rally:

The pedestrian bridge would serve as a critical link in that network of walkable, bikeable paths. It's the difference between the Gulch being included in the vision of a better downtown or not .... For pedestrians the Gulch is virtually isolated from downtown, and the pedestrian bridge would solve that. It would also serve as a destination itself, much like a park. It would attract people to relax or to be entertained with green space and seating areas. It should not be a plain straight bridge when it can serve a much greater purpose.

What a departure from the North Capitol community meetings on the new Sounds ballpark plan, where the Mayor's representatives and Metro planners barely even addressed the community's auto traffic concerns. Despite the fact that many of us here want to see a real dedication to complete streets (which integrate safe walkability and bikeability) at First Tennessee Park, the Mayor's forces bulldozed through our concerns to get quick approval for the development so that he can throw out the first pitch next April 17 when the Sounds take the field for the first time. But when it comes to the Gulch and approval of a luxury sidewalk, complete streets are critical.

The Mayor's other point--that the sidewalk would be be more park or greenspace than sidewalk--is a hard sell. Greenspace-starved Jefferson Street in North Nashville could use a park-over to minimize the blighting effects of the interstate that cuts through neighborhoods (our lone pedestrian bridge reflects that blight) Park-overs are generally super-sized land bridges, not pedestrian sidewalks with a few places to sit. To ask us to believe that Mayor Dean is creating a park with a sidewalk is an insult to our intelligence and to real park-overs everywhere.

Hizzoner's brave new proposal is not to raise taxes but to dedicate the taxes already collected from business and property owners to the project.

So, is this proposal any different than the first? Not really. Mayor Dean is merely robbing Peter to pay Paul. The bridge funding plan really is a gimmick, catalyzed by smoke and mirrors. It is budgetary sleight of hand, making it seem like no one gets hurt.

In his Gulch speech, the Mayor defended spending the money on the new Gulch sidewalk insisting that it would promote growth downtown whose benefits would then trickle down to suburban Davidson County. He encouraged Gulch residents to argue that point with critics of the plan. It is the same argument he lobs to promote lavishing public funds--without raising taxes, but with diminished Metro budget returns--on any of his big ticket capital items downtown.

With a sufficient number of sexy downtown builds to judge now, the question we should be asking ourselves is, "Do you feel the benefits trickling in yet?" From where I sit in North Nashville, I'm not seeing benefits that serve citizens trickling into Salemtown. Libraries and community centers are still on restricted hours. Schools in the area want for resources. I have to wonder when our brush pile will be picked up, proper bus stops will be installed and pot holes will be fixed. So, why should I support a luxury sidewalk for tourist-oriented downtown if North Nashville does not get one, too?

The taxes that would have otherwise gone to help fund services that all of us benefit from are going to be held in abeyance to pay for infrastructure enjoyed only by Gulch residents and the tourists who frequent the hotels and downtown hot spots. Could near North Nashville (or any other urban ring neighborhood) get the same deal? Could our taxes be withheld from the Metro budget to build a luxurious pedestrian bridge even without the same concentration of tourists enjoyed by the Gulch?

I doubt it. Karl Dean would not make the offer to any neighborhood outside downtown that does not have the cash flow in hand. Dedicating these funds is a net tax break for the Gulch: the buying power of their revenues gets a bump with this assist from Karl Dean. So, again, why should I support Metro's latest gilded excess designed to indulge downtown's bloated elite class? Rather than expressing the avarice of trickle-down benefits, why can't the Mayor spread the wealth around liberally? Why can't Gulch land owners and merchants continue to kick in their share of revenues for the benefit of us all or be decent enough to leverage their own tax increase to pay for this sidewalk?

The Mayor's argument that he will not be raiding Metro's bridges and sidewalks fund--as he proposed to do last winter--is moot. The fact that it took an embarrassing defeat of one of Mayor Dean's more titillating capital projects for him to kick in money for ordinary sidewalks in neighborhoods should tell you what you need to know about him: he does not care about communities beyond those that attract tourists, beyond those with the money to finance campaigns.

So, Karl Dean is going to start working to peel off votes of CMs who previously expressed opposition, likely with promises of future spending on neighborhoods in various districts. He seems already to have peeled off one CM who shouted the loudest against the bridge last winter: Charlie Tygard, who has always crumbled at the slightest hint of giving tax breaks to developers anyway.

Bridge or no bridge there is a silver lining. The positive takeaway from the coarseness of this plan is the insight of what it takes the get this Mayor to consider spending money on infrastructure outside of downtown: vocal, organized, sometimes angry opposition. There is no courthouse good will absent the pressure to make him care. Neighborhood leaders have to stay well-organized to stop not just the actual bulldozers but the virtual ones, too.

Council candidate Jeff Syracuse seemed defensive about fair questions

We all say things we regret. Some of us try live up to the folly. Others try and scrub their public comments from sight, so they don't have to stand by their words. It is especially bad when people seeking public office choose not to stand by their words.

Hip Syracuse

Take Jeff Syracuse, who is running for a council seat to represent "Hip Donelson." A few years ago I received an email pondering how Mr. Syracuse could move in a matter of weeks from someone seeking advice on how to organize a neighborhood association to someone who could be invited to a personal meeting with the Mayor as a neighborhood leader.

My initial thought on that email was, "Well, it is an election campaign year and for the first time in 4 years Karl Dean considers neighborhoods important to engage." In fact, in April 2011, Hizzoner launched a series of neighborhood "gatherings" and "steering committees" that often carried a veneer of paternalistic openness to change and philanthropic volunteerism, but that constituted campaign stops orchestrated by the Mayor's Office of Neighborhoods. Those meetings ended after Karl Dean was re-elected.

Excuse my jadedness, but Karl Dean's interest in neighborhoods in 2011 seemed opportunistic. The questions I asked Mr. Syracuse are fair ones given the benefits that could accrue to those neighborhood leaders with whom the Mayor's Office identified to network. Mr. Syracuse was reportedly one of those leaders, and now he has moved from private citizen to public figure. No reasonable questions are unfair at this point for a public figure.

So, I raised the issue with him tonight on Twitter. He responded. Then he scrubbed his Twitter stream of his responses. Knowing what I know of the sensitivity of politicos to their public image, I took the liberty of screenshotting some of the exchange (now scrubbed):

Before scrubbing, he conceded that he indeed did inquire about how to form a neighborhood association and that he was invited and did attend one of Karl Dean's campaign luncheons for neighborhood leaders in April 2011. I asked him how then I was "full of baloney" given that he conceded that the facts I tweeted were right, at which point he stopped responding to me altogether.

Point of fact, Mr. Syracuse sent a message to other neighborhood leaders on April 12, 2011 with these comments:

I had a great lunch with Mayor Dean, Billy Fields, and four others who represented their neighborhoods around Nashville.  We met in the Mayor's Office.  Each neighborhood representative spoke about the issues they are dealing with and it was enlightening to recognize the common issues we all face .... It was a pleasure & a privledge to have a seat at this table.  I hope to do it again in the future. [sic]

I don't understand why Mr. Syracuse would now say I was wrong or why he would scrub his Twitter stream of our exchange, other than he himself is now in campaign mode and cannot entertain questions that veer off his campaign's talking points.

His relentless and unapologetic campaigning is a reason I quit an online neighborhoods e-list earlier this year. But at least one very Deanesque mayoral candidate and champion of charter schools endorsed Jeff Syracuse's campaign kick-off event, even if he cannot himself vote for Mr. Syracuse.


UPDATE: the hits just keep coming for Jeff Syracuse. The Mayor's Office of Neighborhoods announces that they have selected him to serve on a panel to train neighborhood leaders. He's got friends in high places.

Public hearing on "no dogs" house SP proposal is less than one week away, and still no word from the developer on any changes

Recently I wrote about the notice sent out in Salemtown about the rezoning request for the "no dogs" house on 6th Av. N. Since that time the association got to meet with the primary in the project, Clay Haynes, to ask questions and make comments. The request is to rezone to "SP" or "specific plan," which allows the community to have influence over the project.

The business meeting was generally productive. I expressed my concerns about stormwater run-off, which has been a problem between 5th and 6th where I live for as long as I've lived here.

I also followed up with the this email to Salemtown Neighbors president, Freddie O'Connell:

I do not have any reservations about the dwelling design and I am grateful that he is making every effort to preserve the 115-year-old structure. I agree with those who make preservation a priority for this development.

That said, I also understand that the building was originally built as a duplex and I do not have a problem with it being renovated as a "multi-family" dwelling. However, if the association has any concerns about density, I would support SNNA in limiting the plan accordingly.

My greatest concern is with stormwater run-off. Except for the 1898 structure and sidewalks, the entire property is currently greenspace. That greenspace soaks up rather than sheds rainfall. There is a slight berm at the back of the property that also retains and diverts stormwater.

The plan proposes to pave approximately half the greenspace and level the back so that cars can access parking at the alley rather than on the street in front. That is going to create a higher volume of stormwater not being retained on the property but rather flowing downhill, across the alley and into our yard ... (as well as a property next to ours). Parking 4-8 cars on an impervious surface will also send motor oils and other fluids into the alley and the adjoining yards during storms.

I would like to see the association ask Clay to develop a detailed stormwater retention strategy as part of his plan, using retainers (for instance, stone borders or walls on slopes), rain gardens (which filter toxins as well as retain water) and pervious concrete or permeable stones in the parking lot with spacing for water absorption in the underlying soil. Given that we are so close to the river, these elements would aid in keeping 4-8 times more pollutants out of the Cumberland via alley and street run-off.

I understand that Clay's proposal meets stormwater requirements, but specific plans are negotiable above and beyond the baselines Metro sets. Besides that, after living here for a decade, I have found that stormwater requirements have not always been sufficient to address run-off, pooling and flooding between 7th Av and 4th Av.

I appreciate the association's support on this quality of life issue and I hope that Clay will write limitations on paving materials into the specific plan. If he does so, I will not oppose it in the future either in community meetings or at public hearings, unless the association has other concerns that require my support in those venues.

At the meeting, the members seemed amenable to my concerns about run-off. So, I hope to see some restrictions written into the SP to protect our interests.

I cannot find the proposal or planning analysis on the proposal on the Metro website, yet, but the Planning Commission public hearing on this proposal is less than a week away: September 25, 4:00p, at the Sonny West Conference Center, 700 2nd Av. S. I am hoping to hear something before then, because I plan to be at the meeting to express my concerns.


UPDATE:  Planning department officials tell me that the planning staff analysis of this proposal will not be posted online until next Friday at noon. So, we will essentially have only a couple of days to look over what Metro Planning presents to the planning commission before the latter votes it up or down after Monday's public hearing. There has got to be a better way to inform neighbors affected by the plan on 6th Av. N. The developers have all of the knowledge way ahead of the public hearing and thus they enjoy a distinct advantage over neighborhoods.


UPDATE:  Freddie O'Connell forwarded the following response from the developer.

Attached you will find the SP which was submitted to planning which specifically designates the parking to be pervious.  After discussing this with my engineer, it's likely we will use a combination of both pavers as well as pervious concrete and create an appealing design.  These materials are install on top of a deep crushed stone base to provide additional storage capacity.

Additionally, there are two heavily landscaped rain gardens along the rear of the property which will further retain and absorb any possible runoff.  With the combination of these techniques, I'm told that it's highly likely that we will actually retain more runoff than it does at present.

I really think that he will be pleased with the design.  Because the lot has such a steep slope, his concern is valid although.  Honestly, he should look at the adjacent construction project. I don't believe that single family homes have to submit storm water plans and that parcel's permeability was just cut in half, if not more depending on the rear drive.

This seems to be good news. The proposal goes before the Planning Commission today. The planning department analysis of the proposal recommends it based on their usual reasoning about savings and walkable urban neighborhoods, but makes no mention of the environmental and stormwater impact changes that the developer says he has made to the SP. I'll be watching this proposal just as I have every other SP that has been proposed for our neighborhood. As I have in the past, I will contact Metro planners should the plan not materialize as proposed.

As to his point about the adjoining property under construction, the developers did not seek rezoning on that parcel, so I did not have the chance to try to leverage attention to water retention issues. As long as builders meet the bureaucratic requirements based on current zoning, the neighborhood has no say-so regarding these questions. That is why SPs proposals are so important for the community to respond to. If I had that opportunity, I would have expressed these same concerns to those developers, too.


10/01/2018 UPDATE: over 4 years later and the renovation of the "No Dogs House" is ongoing. The building so far looks consistent with the original plans. What appears to be impervious concrete has been poured for parking. Question is was this concrete in the original plan or was it originally supposed to the pervious surface that the developer told Freddie O'Connell (now our Metro Council member) would be poured? Maybe the center hole in the lot is going to be pervious surface or pavers? The lot appears to slope slightly to the north so that water might run off into the grass instead of directly to the alley. We shall see what kind of run-off this creates for those of us who live across the alley. Photo was taken this afternoon.

Today is the one month anniversary of the shooting of Michael Brown and none of Nashville's mayoral candidates have put forward policy ideas on police brutality and militarism in black communities

Photo credit: Al Jazeera America

One month ago today Michael Brown was shot dead by a Ferguson, Missouri police officer. It was an infamous event that ignited anger and concern around the nation. There were mass protests around the country, especially after militarized St. Louis County police cracked own on organized local demonstrations. Social media coverage blew up and forced city politicians hundreds of miles from St. Louis to deal with the fallout. The federal government is currently investigating how police handled the shooting and the social protests with the possibility that any militarized police force that has used military weaponry against protesters could be forced to return the grants.

In late August local congregational leaders in Nashville sponsored a standing-room-only town hall meeting in North Nashville marked by unease, consternation and qualified support for Nashville's police department, their double standard toward non-white communities and their own military arsenal gained through federal government grants. Police officers were prompted to account for the ways they have used military weaponry in service of the public.

That meeting was attended by the candidates who have announced their desire to take over the Mayor's Office next year. One would think that after Ferguson shook the country and after the shock waves were felt in Nashville that this all-white slate of candidates would be articulating some kind of policy options for checking militarized policing in Nashville. Maybe I have not looked in the right places, but I cannot tell that they have proposed any changes to the Nashville status quo. Maybe they believe the don't need the votes.

I searched local news feeds.

And I looked at their websites. This is what I found there as of today.

School reformer Jeremy Kane is otherwise a blank slate. He says nothing about his policy ideas on the issues, preferring "to hear" your ideas for Nashville on his website. He has an air-brushed PR video on the main page that basically retreads Karl Dean's three-headed campaign hellhound: education, law enforcement and economic development. He adds reformer jargon to public education like "collaboration," which is typically code for "privatization" (subsidizing private enterprise with Metro revenue that would otherwise be used for public programs).

I cannot find any evidence that candidate Kane has said a thing about policing Ferguson or the militarization of police forces. Does he believe that charter schools are the answer? He attended the August 21 town hall meeting on Jefferson Street, but his only response to that was to thank the organizers of the event on Twitter.

Megan Barry has gone farther than Jeremy Kane in giving some detail to policy questions on her website, but those details do not seem to be updated in the last month with all of the unpleasantness arising from the Michael Brown shooting in Ferguson. In her public safety meditation, she vaguely refers to the justice system "treating everyone the same". She makes no specific reference to racial inequality when she fleshes out what she means by that. She says nothing about curbing the excesses of police militarism and brutality even as she touts her council votes in support of increasing the number of cops on the streets, which is only a good thing if cops are treating everyone even-handedly (as we heard at last month's town hall, they are not).

Candidate Barry offers no indication that she supports citizen advisory committees to watchdog the actions of police armored to the hilt with weapons of war. And I have already pointed out that she seemed to deny that the injustices of Ferguson are likely to happen in Nashville based on nothing but a metropolitan structure of government. As if individuals who work for Metro government cannot make bad decisions.

For his part, Charles Robert Bone has been quieter than the rest on the question of race, police brutality, and military toys for cops. Mr. Bone seems satisfied in his website comments with the direction Nashville has taken on public safety, and so I am growing to expect little illumination from him on how he would address policing problems that affect North Nashville more than other parts of the city.

So, we have three candidates for the county executive seat, none of whom have committed any public promises that they will order policies that protect communities from militarized police. A month after Michael Brown was shot dead (according to witnesses with his hands in the air), weeks after the protests shook our country and North Nashville held a town hall meeting, how can Jeremy Kane, Megan Barry, and Charles Bone remain unaccountably quiet on what they might do to forestall the repercussions of these troubling times? How can they vie for the most powerful seat in Nashville without any clear ideas for preventing Ferguson from happening in Davidson County?

Developer seeks community support for Specific Plan on historic structure in Salemtown

The "no dogs house" (1604 6th Ave N) is a well-known structure in Salemtown and over years there has been a regular buzz over what was going to happen to it once someone bought it for redevelopment. It is one of the oldest remaining homes in the neighborhood, but it fell into disrepair over the past few decades.

The following Metro Planning post card grabbed our attention over the weekend:

I was interested in learning more about what was going to happen to the old house, so I followed up with the planners, who replied that the developer plans to renovate (as in, "not demolish") the structure and build new additions to it. They sent me the preliminary specific plan:

Salemtown Neighbors neighborhood association has a business meeting tonight at 6:00 at the Morgan Park Community Center. Their agenda includes a discussion of the rezoning plan with the developer. Any time a "Specific Plan" is proposed by developers, they are required to get community feedback and incorporate it into the plan. The feedback can involve anything about the plan: density, size, design, infrastructure, stormwater impact, continuity, etc. The community meeting process with developers for SP is critical, so I expect meetings like the one tonight to be very important to those of us concerned about our quality of life.