Mike - I don't know why that question is addressed to me, but I'll tell you what I truly believe based on attending all the meetings at the time the VC was being projected. The developers were locked into the property. They had tried at least one - possibly two - earlier projects which did not pass. They absolutely needed the alley or they couldn't build the entire site. They told the Board that if they couldn't build the size they wanted they would sit on it and use it as their office. I fail to see how a builder/developer office would have been worse to have there than a drugstore. They should have been told to go back and develop a proposal for something within the recently developed code. They weren't going anywhere, because the property, under those conditions, would have had the same value to anyone else so would not have been profitable to sell. Instead, they put the newspapers back in the windows and brought in this monster, and the Board fell for it, allowed them to build without providing the required parking, add an extra floor, and bring in this monster. Then they sold them the parking buyout they needed for $5K per space - far less than it will cost to provide, and topped it by selling them the alley for $15,000. Now we have an ugly, overbulk and over height structure to tolerate with insufficient parking that is precedent setting in exactly the wrong way. They didn't give up the variance, the cheap parking buyout and the alley at cut-rate prices to get an architectural masterpiece, they went for the bulk and the dollars in taxes they envision from those 22 units. And we get this crap to look at forever.
If they had said no, not given the four story variance even before the developers had acquired the Chmell property, then the Village could have leveraged a decent development. That's why so many people feel this Board is development at any price, for we could hardly find a higher price in terms of spoiling the aesthetics of the Village than this garbage. They're so blinded by using the CBD as a cash cow to save their fiscal bacon that they will do anything.
Witness the Arcade fiasco. They had a deal - nine condos and a RESTORATION - first class we were told. But they had to go for the TIF, and so the developer said, let's get some of that. And now it's no more condos but a wish list of $1.4 mil or thereabouts in Village largess. These aren't the only two developers in the world, they didn't have to bite for anything less than the best. So why would anyone believe them when they come forward with this TIF. "Give us the money and we'll do the right thing." That doesn't fly with their track record. You've already got a guy talking about four buildings larger than the VC for the south face of Burlington. Within code, he says. Underground parking for the public and the residents. What are the chances these people would resist that kind of megabuck deal? You can't show any evidence of them either upholding the code they paid a mint to develop or working a deal that is good for the Village - not just the Village finances. I can show you a terrible, oversize, non-conforming building and a botched deal on the south side of the tracks. Believe me, somewhere, there is something else happening that has as yet not surfaced. I can't put my fingers (pardon the pun) on it yet, but it will surface. Hopefully, not after this thing floats.
Regarding the schools: Taking anything from them is ludicrous if the intent is to give them back the money, maybe a little less and maybe a little more, somewhere down the road, at the cost of destroying the quiet ambiance of the Village. Where do the cars go that exit the VC onto Longcommon? Down to the school or Akenside, around the triangle, then back across the tracks? What about the parked cars shown reversed into both sides of East Ave., coming right out into the Forest/Longcommon intersection? How do they go west? Piling a parking structure on Pine will be disastrous, and another 50-100 units will just compound the problem without bringing any advantage - except tax dollars. This isn't Las Vegas - the Board should not gamble with the character of our little Village just for the bucks they so desperately want to play with. That's my view.
Posted Tuesday Feb 27, 2007 11:11
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