Two clarifications/amplifications to Ken Avidor's post: Ken writes: > The reason I oppose the removal of housing for parking at 38th and > Nicollet is that it begins the process of transforming the urban, > pedestrian friendly nature of that business node into a suburban style > strip mall. Other businesses in Kingfield will surely petition to have > nearby houses knocked down to build parking lots. Wings 'n Ribs , I've > heard has plans to replace a nearby house with a parking lot.
First, the bad news: Wings 'n' Ribs did petition the board last year for our recommendation to allow them to tear down a single home so they could expand a parking lot. They got it. (At the time, we didn't know what Ace was planning). So Ken's fear has already been realized. However, Wings 'n' Ribs never did tear the house down. Their approval has since expired. I don't know how their tear-down would have affected the Ace vote, but they'd have to ask anew now. The board did wonder where to draw the line, too - but Ace seemed to stand on its merits as a thriving business in an area with obvious demand. Maybe that demand abates with their lot's construction - I did wheedle out a concession that their space can be used for the neighborhood businesses. One large, looming issue in all this that I forgot to mention in my initial post: the possible/probably move of the 35th/36th street 35W ramps to 38th street - as recommended by the 35W Access Ramp project advisory committee, which has been reviewing Lake Street-area access. If the ramps move, all the parking on 38th street will be lost and we WILL need more parking for the ongoing businesses. Again, there is lots of sentiment for an "integrated" parking solution - perhaps a small ramp shared by all the businesses. But where is the money for that, and should Ace be held hostage for something whose details are very much up in the air? Ken again: > I think a tough zoning decision like this should be made at the City > Council level with neighborhood input. Perhaps a recommendation like > this is too hot and nasty a job to expect from part-time, unpaid > volunteers. Actually, that is how decisions are made - which is why the neighborhood board gets to review/recommend. As I always remind neighbors, the board's power is just advisory: the elected Council makes the real decision. The council will hold a hearing/vote that will be open to the public. So if Ken wants to organize and storm the council, go for it! However, I assume Ken means getting rid of the neighborhood board step and just leave it up to the neighbors to get involved as they will. I think that alternative is worse. That would force neighbors to keep tabs on all the issues and make the time to get down to city hall (or in touch with their reps) for a neighborhood view to be heard. Given what I've seen of people's willingness to get consistently involved, that's a lot more scattershot way than the way we now have it. The trick, I think, is making sure the board consistently encourages citizen involvement and shares information. I originally ran for the board precisely because I wanted neighbors to be better informed. Citizen involvement is precisely why I have publicized this issue both in our 400-person neighborhood email list and on this forum. I feel compelled to do this in part because we couldn't give the neighborhood enough notice. It wasn't on our agenda, and that was a major objection from some board members. That said, we spent half our January meeting on this and I think we felt comfortable in our advisory roles as elected representatives. Of course, the virtue of Ken's approach is that it would keep a hasty or unrepresentative board's recommendation from having too much weight. Whether we were hasty or unrepresentative is subjective, and on some level, unknown. The moral is that nothing's perfect, so Ken's approach may be right. I do think this is a good case study for the strengths and weaknesses of Minneapolis's approach. Best, David Brauer King Field - Ward 10 _________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com _______________________________________ 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
