Cara Letofsky asks: Questions for the list relating to the CVI and Lydia House proposals for supportive housing that require waivers from the city's own ordinance limiting these facilities from being located within a quarter-mile radius of each other:
1. Why have the ordinance if it is never enforced in the very neighborhoods that led to the ordinance in the first place? Was it all placating politics meant to quiet neighborhood activists in the first place? 2. While I don't think the ordinance has ever been upheld in the neighborhoods of Phillips, Stevens Square-Loring Heights and Whittier, does anyone doubt that it would be in tonier, politically stronger neighborhoods? Just a new spin on an old issue, [TB] MOST Minneapolis neighborhoods do not even have a single supportive housing unit, thus the issue has never been raised there. Although not living in the same neighborhood as Lydia House, I do live within a few minutes walk and a number of the 30-some supportive housing facilities within a quarter mile of Lydia House are in my neighborhood. I have read the report that was prepared in opposition to the project. The proposed Lydia House supportive housing facility is not the worst available option for the property. Removing the support structure and renting the place out as SRO apartments would be allowable under current zoning without a variance based on the previous use of the building. Razing the building and replacing it with something else is probably not financially viable. Go around the corner on Groveland and you have your basic "tonier, politically stronger neighborhood" ... nice town-homes, condos and all. Those residents are on of the reasons this debate is taking place. Having lived for the past 20 years in the most densely populated neighborhoods in Minneapolis, the same neighborhoods with high concentrations of housing the quarter mile spacing is intended to spread around, I understand and agree with the goals of avoiding that concentration. That being said, during that 20 years, I have never experienced any problems caused by residents of that housing. Given the alternatives for Lydia House, City approval for supportive housing makes a lot more sense than removing the support and having SRO apartments which does not require City approval. Terrell Brown Loring Park __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Send FREE video emails in Yahoo! Mail! http://promo.yahoo.com/videomail/ _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
