Topic: redevelopment

Cunningham Lane Town Hall Meeting offers insight, information

By Turner McCullough Jr. | April 30, 2008 |

Area residents concerned about school zone safety, police presence, zoning requests and unsightly neighbors

Residents of City Wards 2 and 3 attended a town hall meeting yesterday evening at Park Lane Church of the Nazarene on Cunningham Lane. The gathering was hosted by Council representatives Deanna Maclaughlin and James Lewis. CPD District One officers were guest presenters.

MacLaughlin reminded those in attendance that May 2nd is the last day for Street Department yard debris pick-up. Debris must be cardboard boxes or paper leaf bags. It must stacked at the street. Call 645-7464 to schedule pick-up. Pick-up may be delayed up to ten days. City pool passes go on sale Monday, May 5, with new pricing. Details are available at the Parks and Recreation Office, 104 Public Square, Monday thru Friday 8 AM to 4:30 PM, beginning May 5. Utility bills must be provided as proof of Clarksville city residence. Call 645-7476 for more information.

CPD District One officers Cain and Daley gave the residents an update on the department’s Explorer program. The program is a serious effort designed to give participants a realistic idea of what a career in law enforcement entails. Personal conduct is accountable. Mistakes have consequences. The program has a small staff and the students are considered to be ‘on the clock,’ the same as the officers who work with them.

When asked about additional school zone speed limit signs along Cunningham Lane, Officer Daley said that placing those signs is not the purview of the police department. He noted that while Tiny Town Road has a 20 MPH School Zone sign in the area fronting the entrance to Barkers Mill Elementary School, the actual access road to the school has a 30 MPH speed limit because it’s an access road. He agreed drivers need to be more observant of school zone speed limits and slow down. Councilman Lewis said he would look into these situations. «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: News, Politics | No Comments

“Blight” bill up for 2nd reading & vote; City Council sets Executive & Special Sessions

By Christine Anne Piesyk | April 24, 2008 |

UPDATE: Upon receipt of a Special Called Session agenda at 12:30 p.m. today, the vote in question on the adoption of ordinance 96-2007-08 is NOT on the agenda; it was listed as part of the special session agenda previously received by Clarksville Online and discussed on 4/23/08, the agenda upon which this story is based. The ordinance will have its second reading as scheduled.

Ordinance 96-2007-08, a.k.a. “the blight bill,” is coming before the City Council in back-to-back meetings for a second reading AND a vote to adopt the controversial ordinance tonight starting at 4:30 p.m. in the City Hall Conference Room at 1 Public Square in downtown Clarksville. At a recent meeting on this issue on the APSU campus, Mayor Johnny Piper assured concerned residents affected by this ordinance, titled Clarksville Center Redevelopment and Urban Renewal Plan, that it would NOT come up before the Council “until May.” Today is April 24.

The first item under new business for the special session reads as follows:

1. ORDINANCE 96-2007-08 (Second Reading) Adopting the Clarksville Center Redevelopment and Urban Renewal Plan

The ordinance in its original form deemed approximately two square miles of downtown Clarksville as blighted, subject to eminent domain, under a Clarksville Redevelopment Plan. That plan was flawed in content and the process used to present it to the affected residents and business owners. A re-worked version which has some improvements, added the words “urban renewal” to “redevelopment” but still carried many of the same problems including eminent domain and an assemblage clause that Clarksville Property Rights Coalition (CPRC) attorney Attorney John Summers called “audacious.”

Here’s the game plan: The City Council will meet in a non-voting Executive Session first, at 4:30 p.m., in the conference room, with an extensive agenda that includes a second reading of the ordinance as the first item under new business, a move which caught members of the coalition members off-guard, but not for long. That Executive Session agenda lists time for “Public Comment” at the END of each meeting. The Executive Session will be immediately followed by a “Special Called Voting Session” at which a full agenda of items including the Redevelopment Plan will be presented. (See complete Special Session and Executive Session agendas at the end of this article). The Special Called Meeting will also only accept public comment only AFTER the meeting. «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Issues, News | No Comments

Economic slowdown touching Clarksville?

March 30, 2008 |

Photograph By: Bill Larson

This is Del Del Jekins. I took time to speak with him as I made my way down Madison Avenue the other day. Mr. Jenkins works in the construction industry, pouring concrete. With the slowing economy, he came to Clarksville looking for work in our local construction industry, but as he told me, “So far things are not looking too good.” Clarksville has yet to feel the pinch of the national recession as intensely as other areas of our country, but have no doubt that it eventually will. Historically, Clarksville is generally slow entering a recession and even slower getting out of one. This fact does not bode well for the potential success of the redevelopment plans that Clarksville’s city government is dead set on undertaking.

«Read the rest of this article»

Sections: News | No Comments

People searched, silenced at public forum; redevelopment questions go unanswered

By Bill Larson | March 21, 2008 |

The Castle Coalition, a national grassroots property rights group working on eminent domain issues, came to Clarksville Thursday to participate in a rally prior to the city’s public forum on the redevelopment plan held in the Burt School cafeteria on Thursday.

The rally featured Christina Walsh , Clarksville Property Rights Coalition Spokesman John Summers, Dan Brown of the Tennessee Preservation Trust and others. They addressed plan opponents and members of the press on the issues they perceive in the current version of Clarksville’s Redevelopment Plan. Summers and Brown have been frequent speakers at CPRC meetings.

After the rally, the public forum began in the Burt School Cafeteria. with Mayor Piper making the first statement. The program continued with a presentation by Knoxville’s KCDC President Alvin Nance, followed by Downtown District Partnership board member and recent appointee to the Clarksville Housing Authority Frank Lott. The presentation given was identical to the KCDC video on the “Our view: The updated redevelopment plan still has major flaws” article; watching that video provided all the same information as last night’s forum.

Laws mean exactly what they say on paper; it does not matter what those who created it intended for it to say. What counts is in the actual letter of the law. Members of the City Council do not see any issues with the plan they approved, even though a common sense reading shows that this plan is faulty, open to major abuse, and was clearly intended to make it easier for developers to take private property from its owner and then profit from it. Mayor Piper and the council have denied that, but that is exactly how the currently plan reads.

Counting heads, the Fire Marshall allowed only 180 people inside the hall for the meeting, with another estimated 150 people turned away. [Editor's note: At the Train Station meeting in December, more than 300 people turned out to oppose this plan.] CPRC members provided a list of the names and addresses of people who were denied access to this public forum: page after page was full of names and addresses. «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Issues, News, Politics | No Comments

Join the fight against eminent domain abuse in Clarksville

March 18, 2008 |

Several groups opposing the Clarksville Center Redevelopment and Urban Renewal Plan will hold a rally prior to the City of Clarksville’s public hearing scheduled on the Plan for this Thursday, March 20th, at 6:00pm. Opponents of the redevelopment plan should plan on wearing red clothing.

At 4:30pm on Thursday, the Clarksville Property Rights Coalition (CPRC) will hold a rally to protest the Redevelopment Plan and the recent new Plan Amendment proposed by Mayor Piper. The rally will be held in the parking lot across from Burt School, 110 Bailey Street, the location of the public hearing.

The Redevelopment Plan authorizes the use of eminent domain over more than 1,000 parcels of private property near downtown Clarksville. Under the Plan, government agencies have the power to condemn homes, businesses and churches then transfer the land to a private developer. The city approved the original ordinance and Plan last year, but failed to follow state law in notifying all affected property owners. A proposed amendment to the Plan has been prepared by Mayor Piper. The Amendment does not remove the condemnation provisions, but instead actually strengthens the eminent domain language.

«Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Issues, News | No Comments

Lost in Limbo

March 12, 2008 |

How the Threat of Eminent Domain Harms Property Owners

An irony of urban redevelopment is that the purported goal of economic development is usually hampered by government’s insistence on retaining the power of eminent domain for a project. Forest City, a developer infamous for its Atlantic Yards dispute in New York, is involved in just such a situation in Fresno, Calif. Fresno decided in 2005 that the area south of Chukchansi Park, home of the city’s minor league baseball team, should be “revitalized.” The next year, the city hired mega-developer Forest City to begin the downtown redevelopment; unfortunately, the very plan designed to revitalize Fresno’s downtown is draining the area of not only its current tax base but hampering other future investments in that area.

Forest City’s plan for the 85-acre South Stadium area, which calls for a new shopping district and 700 new homes, has threatened more than 40 properties with eminent domain for private gain. ¹ «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Business, Issues | No Comments

Our view: The updated redevelopment plan still has major flaws

March 5, 2008 |

We took an in-depth look at the proposed modifications to the blight ordinance and redevelopment plan, and discovered the new plan has the exact same issues which made the old plan so objectionable. We have included it in full below, and have highlighted in red items that we feel should be of concern to the average citizen, and especially to the property owners in the affected areas. We feel that you will agree it is a lot of red.

It’s also of some concern that they are now also looking at implementing plans along the “Madison corridor” and Riverside drive in addition to the massive downtown plan. We have serious doubts that city and the developer interests which are behind them, will be interested in stopping with just those sections of Clarksville.

Here’s Mayor Piper talking about his modifications to the Redevelopment plan…

Yes, our city needs conduct some targeted redevelopment, but they should not attempt to accomplish it in this capricious manner. «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Issues, Opinion, Politics | 1 Comment »

Citizen concerns, ideas and input “vital” to successful downtown redevelopment

February 15, 2008 |

Patsy Sharpe, a downtown property owner, submitted the following letter to Clarksville Online, with the following note: “The Leaf Chronicle is refusing to print letters to editor on the blight issue. They always give different reasons but none are truthfully a good one. I am sending my letter to [Clarksville Online] in hope that you will print what a biased newspaper like the Leaf, won’t. ” The following is Ms. Sharpe’s letter:

I would like to address the upcoming talks on the controversial Redevelopment Plan that blights the entire downtown. The idea of involving the residents and business owners in the affected area is, of course, the only right thing to do. They should have been notified from the beginning and one can only speculate as to why they were excluded, referring to the Emerald Hill and Dog Hill residents. The Brandon Hills and Red River residents were notified. If proper procedure is followed, there will be a series of meetings and discussions on how redevelopment should proceed and all should have a voice in the matter. For the record, we are not anti-redevelopment. We just want redevelopment that is fair and beneficial to the residents as well as to the city. «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Issues | No Comments

Write for us!

Feeds

• Full
• Comments