[RP TownTalk] TownTalk Digest, Vol 4, Issue 1

[Jack R. Jones]

The Patriot Group seems to be interested in doing town center 
development that makes sense, especially considering the MARC 
station. Five stories is a good start, in my readings on successful 
developments of center cities the formula is ground floor commercial 
space, second floor office space, third, fourth, and fifth are 
residential...so the concern for decrease in commercial space is 
great. The parking spaces are what is eating it up, ultimately we 
need to replace zoned planning with city planning so that population 
densities that favor mass transit can be achieved. The zoned planning 
drives the necessity of having a car and its economic burden of 
ownership. We should, as James Howard Kunstler in his Geography of 
Nowhere recommended, collect all the zoning laws and put them in a 
pile and as a Civic Celebration burn them. A bit of sarcasm (maybe) 
on his part, he also had many other good ideas.

Other good books, that I have read and can recommend on cities and economies:
Kirkpatrick Sale, Human Scale
Louis Mumford, The Culture of Cities
Murray Bookchin, Limits to the City
Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities
The Second Coming of the American Small Town," Wilson Quarterly 
(Winter 1992): 19-50

Read and enjoy,
Jack R. Jones

PS: Is the other developer, developing or speculating, I wonder?

>
>Message: 1
>Date: Mon, 31 Oct 2005 22:32:26 -0500
>From: Alice Ewen Walker <alice.ewen.walker at gmail.com>
>Subject: [RP TownTalk] Patriot Group Town Center Proposal
>To: TownTalk <towntalk at riverdale-park.org>
>Message-ID:
>	<4cd5126c0510311932g4ef232ccka37f4a979805d097 at mail.gmail.com>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
>I attended the presentation at Town Hall regarding the Patriot Group
>proposal to redevelop the 1.5 acres owned by the Spiropolous Family and
>thought I'd list the highlights for interested residents.
>
>The proposal would develop the properties that now include the Dumm's Pizza,
>Dumm's Grocery, the Boarding House and the former Credit Union building
>into:
>
>- 161 rental units ranging from 880-900 sq ft each; a mix of 1 br 
>and small 2 br
>- 174 parking spaces, 20 of which would be surface spaces
>   and the rest in underground parking
>- 3,000 sq. ft of ground floor retail (equivalent to the area that is now
>   Dumm's Pizza + Dumm's grocery)
>- 5 stories
>- it would take about 2 yrs to build
>
>Citizens that attended made some comments that mostly centered around
>- parking
>- rental units vs. the potential for condo/owner occupied units
>- the amount of ground floor retail that would be reduced from the current
>inventory
>
>The project is in its developmental stages now. There are artist renderings
>at town hall available for viewing. The project, once drawn up, would
>require variance from MUTC zoning for the building height and potentially
>other items.
>
>- Alice Ewen Walker

-- 
"We have met the enemy, and he is us!" Pogo Possum
http://theriverdaleobserver.blogspot.com
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