Topic: Blight

Development on steroids: Rethinking urban planning for a city on the grow

By Christine Anne Piesyk | January 7, 2008 |

It is with a walloping dose of dismay, a meager bit of optimism and sometimes amusement that I follow stories of the city’s intent to address planning and development issues, including signage, as Clarksville braces for the transition of Gateway Medical Center from Madison Street to the St. Bethlehem area, and push forward development issues that affect the entire city. But let’s start with signage.

Signage. No kidding. Someone wants to talk about signs? It’s about time, though it is only a starting point. When the city refers to “blighted” areas, it refers to areas not meeting a maximized tax potential. Your property is worth much less in tax revenue as your home, and so much more (to the city and developers) as a revenue-generating business-zoned cadre of condo’s, apartments, another mini strip mall or as part of the growing Austin Peay State University campus.

In recent months we’ve heard talk of redevelopment, urban blight, and all manner of things relating to zoning and design. The fact is, when I consider what constitutes blight in Clarksville, it’s not just Emerald Hill or Red River or Brandon Hills or any of a half-dozens areas that may or may not be blighted in the usual sense of the word but which trigger dollar signs in the eyes of developers. To see blight, all I have to do is drive down Fort Campbell Boulevard or Wilma Rudolph Boulevard and look out the car window. Blight. One big wall of urban blight in the guise of revenue-producing business districts. The heck with aesthetics.

Face the fact: the view is UGLY. «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Issues, Opinion | 1 Comment »

Community meeting to explain method behind the madness of “blight”

By Christine Anne Piesyk | January 4, 2008 |

Officials for the City of Clarksville will hold a community meeting to discuss the Clarksville Center Redevelopment Plan on Thursday, January 10th at 6p.m. in the Clement Auditorium at Austin Peay State University. Missy Graham, Communications Director for the City of Clarksville, said that the meeting location was selected because APSU is located in the Clarksville Center Redevelopment District. APSU is the only property to be exempt from in the newly designated “blight” area.

According to Graham, “several details of the plan have been misrepresented in recent weeks and the Mayor and City Council are hosting this event to help residents understand the objectives of the plan. The Downtown District Partnership worked on the plan for several years before presenting it to the City Council in the fall of 2007. The City Council voted on the plan on two separate occasions and did not receive any opposition from the public.”

Clarksville Property Rights Coalition members maintain they were unaware of the details and language of the ordinance that has lumped all of the downtown area (except APSU) into a “blighted” category for purposes of redevelopment. Participants in these meetings felt “blindsided ” by the blight designation and were quick to line up and sign postcards addressed to their legislators protesting the the ordinance. The anger crossed boundaries of race, gender and income, unifying residents who were seeking answers and explanations. «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Issues | 2 Comments

Another look at the “blight” debate: videotape of Property Rights Coalition Forum at the train station

By Christine Anne Piesyk | December 27, 2007 |

Last week Clarksville Online offered you, our readers, the complete content of the Dec. 14 HOPE-sponsored meeting to review the “blight” designation applied to downtown Clarksville via Ordinance 73-2005-06.

That first meeting was called in response to a City Council voted that placed two square miles, and 1800 homes and business under a “blighted property” designation to facilitate a Downtown Redevelopment Plan. It is the largest “blanket blighting” in the country and has raised the ire of virtually all the homeowners and many of the businesspeople who reside in or own property in that area. In addition to the start of a postcard and petition drive, the Coalition called for a repeal of the new ordinance, which many property owners say “blindsided” them, signs have also been popping up as a show of protest. The City Council is planning a forum to respond to citizen concerns but have not yet announced a date, time, place, or list of speakers.

Today we present a second tape, this one of the Dec. 17 Clarksville Property Rights Coalition meeting held at the historic L&N Train Station in the heart of what is quickly becoming referred to as “Blightsville” USA.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1928894363612156727

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Sections: Issues | No Comments

City Council plans public forum to address citizen concerns on redevelopment, blight

By Christine Anne Piesyk | December 23, 2007 |

As details of the recent City Council action in approving Ordinance 73-2005-06 unfold, residents of the two-square mile downtown district now deemed “blighted” awakened to what is perceived as a potential threat to their homes and neighborhoods in form of “redevelopment” and eminent domain. The Council quietly whispered through the new ordinance and the people roared back their displeasure in the form of grassroots meetings and the beginnings of a sign campaign that touts the area as “Blightville.”

The City Council, which had considered the plan a done deal, is now facing the need to justify the Downtown Redevelopment Plan. They will respond to an angry constituency with a meeting of their own, a public forum to be held in January on a yet to be determined date and time and location. The Council hearing will be led by an as yet unnamed attorney. They’ll need a big room, since the opposition is growing steadily, as noted with the three hundred people who showed up for the December 17 petition drive at the Historic Train Station on Tenth Street. «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Issues, News | 2 Comments

Redevelopment meeting caught on tape; panelists review ‘blight,’ eminent domain’

By Christine Anne Piesyk | December 20, 2007 |

On Friday, December 14, the Urban Resource Center sponsored an informational program at the HOPE Center on Legion Street to address issues regarding the recent designation of downtown Clarksville as “blighted and a proposed Clarksville Redevelopment Plan.

A second meeting, sponsored by the Clarksville Property Rights Coalition, was held December 17 at the Train Station. That session drew nearly 300 area residents.

Approximately 50 residents, taxpayers, and homeowners attended that session, which featured the panelists: Nashville Atty. John Summers who currently chairs the Tennessee Historic Preservation Coalition, Dan Brown, Executive Director of the Tennessee Preservation Trust, Civil Rights activist and advocate Jimmie Garland Sr. (at right) who is currently serving as President of the Clarksville branch of the NAACP, and author and Human Relations Commissioner David Shelton. Ward 6 Councilor Marc Harris was scheduled to be on this panel but failed to appear. The panelists discussed the issue of eminent domain and the scope of the proposed redevelopment.

Mark Haynes videotaped the HOPE Center meeting in full, and we now present that tape in its entirety to our readers.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=9109126291634962497

Sections: Issues, News | No Comments

Eminent Domain: The continued assault

By James Butler | December 18, 2007 |

Clarksville citizens are certainly up in arms over the proposed Clarksville Center Redevelopment plan, and with good reason. The plan designates large portions of the downtown area as “blighted” (whatever that means) and therefore subject to eminent domain takings. Sadly, unless the council is convinced to repeal or amend the ordinance authorizing the plan there is not much anyone can do to stop such takings.

The Tennessee Code, Constitution, and at least theoretically the United States Constitution provide that private property may only be taken for ‘public use’ and then only after ‘just compensation’ has been given. The Tennessee Code theoretically should prohibit the proposed action, except for the minor problem that theory is fine and well, but as written the title does absolutely nothing to affect the actual eminent domain power with its list of exceptions and lack of definitions of the key terms involved. «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Issues, Opinion, Politics | 3 Comments

Residents pack Station to protest “blight,” demand repeal of development ordinance

By Christine Anne Piesyk | December 17, 2007 |

They came, by the hundreds, and they were concerned. Worried. “Mad as hell.” And determined to do something about it. Nearly three hundred Clarksville residents turned out at the Historic L&N Train Station for a 6 p.m. meeting and petition drive to fight the designation of blight applied to their neighborhoods by the recent City Council approval of a Downtown Redevelopment Plan.

The meeting, called by the Clarksville Property Rights Association, came just three days after a similar meeting held Friday at the HOPE Center on Legion Street. That first meeting drew approximately 50 people. A mailing campaign, and a public relations push saw that first crowd grow to a shoulder-to-shoulder crush of about 300 people at the station. The Property Rights group was stunned but pleased by the turnout, and had done their homework, with petition postcards printed and filed by property owner names, each card ready to be mailed to the City Council. Additional cards were available for anyone not already on the list who wanted to support this effort at rescinding the legislation and the “blight” designation. «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Issues, News | 3 Comments

Residents enraged at ‘blight’ designation, seek repeal of redevelopment plan

By Christine Anne Piesyk | December 15, 2007 |

Audacious. Over the top. Unprecedented. A developer’s “fantasy come true.”

All words used Friday evening to describe the Clarksville Center Redevelopment Plan that deems 1800 parcels of lands and two square miles of the city as “blighted,” a move that would allow the city to take property designated as blighted and “redevelop” it to its maximum potential. Read “profit.”

Terry McMoore of the Urban Resource Center sponsored a community meeting at the HOPE Center on Legion Street to present a panel of speakers on this issue and to field questions from a worried public.

One phrase in the ordinance that concerned panelists and residents alike reads as follows:

“…the Plan for the project area will afford maximum opportunity consistent with the sound needs of the locality as a whole, for redevelopment of the area by private enterprise.” [Ordinance 73-2005-06, Section 7]

«Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Issues, News | 7 Comments