granolapark

So, if I were to tell you the state was going to bestow a legacy to the city would you think of a big fat inheritance? Placement in Ivy League schools? Membership in elite country clubs? Would you assume that something of historical value would be passed on?

Well, if loan payments are of historical value, then yes, that’s it.

The Maryland “Community Legacy Fund” is the strange title of a state loan program, making loans that support public-private partnerships. The Fund is now taking applications so the city council was recently hashing out which of three projects to ask funding for.

The city’s Economic Community Development Director Sara Anne Daines (known by the granolapark staff as “The Silver Fox” for her platinum-silver tresses), presented the options to the council June 5th.

The option the council spent the most time discussing was a proposed Old Town parking facility. The private partner of the “public-private partnership” would in this case be John Urciolo, who owns a big chunk of Old Town - including the row of commercial-spaces on Laurel Avenue, the parking lot tucked behind it, and the currently undeveloped Eastern Avenue property around the corner. Urciolo has been planning a big development there, including a new parking facility on Eastern, enhanced parking in the back lot, and a new commercial-space building on the empty lot next to the post office That empty lot, by the way, used to be a supermarket which burned down in the 1960s - an act of arson, according to rumor.

But, I digress, and so has Mr. Urciolo. This proposed development has failed to, . . . well, develop. And, the buzz is that the plans have become less grand. The proposed community theater, some of the shops, and Eastern Avenue parking facility have been dropped, apparently, though the plans for a restaurant are proceeding - but not with any haste, judging by the lack of any indications such as groundbreaking.

The Eastern Avenue parking facility (everyone calls it a “facility,” though in Urciolo’s original plan it was a “multistory garage.” Gilbert is not sure why this “facility” weaselism is being used. Either it is no longer a multistory garage or they are afraid people will react negatively to the term.)

What was I talking about? Oh, yes, the Eastern Avenue FACILITY plan would be revived by the Legacy Fund loan. The loan would also cover costs associated with the rebuild of the existing parking FACILITY (does that mean it will no longer be a parking LOT?) behind the Laurel Ave. shops.

What will this give us, the persons parking our cars? Parking would be for the generally public, not just for businesses in Mr. Urciolo’s buildings as it is now. Eleven employee parking spaces would be created. And the grand total of additional non-employee public spaces is . . . [drum roll] . . . 29, dear Parkers! And, that’s after adding a restaurant that will require more parking spaces. Old Town is already desperately short of parking, as any local merchant will tell you (wear a raincoat to protect yourself from the froth and spittle).

Fear not, these aspects were not unnoticed by your city councilmembers, Dear Reader.

Some on the council expressed reservations about favoring one business with the loan, and they said some Old Town businesspeople felt the same way. The council skeptics also felt that 29 additional spaces are not enough. Councilmember Terry Seamens said he gets no “warm fuzzy feeling” from the proposed deal. Councilmember Marc Elrich opined that adding only 29 spaces would only exacerbate the parking problems for Urciolo’s current tenants.

However, an incredulous Bruce Williams, councilmember for Ward Three, said that increasing the parking for the area (along the border of Wards Three and One) seemed like a “no-brainer” to him, and asked rhetorically what he was missing. He pointed out that there was no other place in Old Town to locate parking. It doesn’t hurt anybody, Williams said, as long as Urciolo pays back the loan, it is “no skin off our backs.”

Joy Austin-Lane, the councilmember representing Ward One, where the bulk of the Urciolo development would be, agreed with Williams, saying she doesn’t want to see an opportunity lost. However, she was also concerned that only one person would benefit from the loan.

Ms Daines pointed out that other loans are available to other businesses, if they wish to apply.

Marc Elrich proposed a survey of Old Town business owners to see if they thought the 29 additional parking would be a big enough benefit.

Hello? Hello? Why can’t the city enter into a public-private partnership to turn the existing parking LOT behind Laurel Ave into a mostly underground, multi-storey parking GARAGE, with entrance/exits to both Carroll/Laurel and Eastern, PLUS access to the underground garage proposed by the Infrastructure Capital Group (ICG) “Taliano’s” developers??

Gilbert has to admit that this may be impossible to do from an engineering standpoint (and no other standpoint is of any relevance in this matter). In the course of this discussion it came out that the Mayor and at least some of the council (Williams and Austin-Lane, anyway) met with John Urciolo at the urging of the local neighborhood association to convince him to allow access from IGC’s proposed FACILITY to Urciolo’s Eastern Ave FACILITY. The concern of the neighborhood association is that ICG’s only planned access point for their parking FACILITY is on a narrow, steep, residential street, Westmoreland Avenue ((see the March 17th granolapark posting “Hydra Foil”).

The Mayor and Councilmember Williams were disappointed, they said, because Mr. Urciolo made it plain that the angle from ICG’s underground garage to Eastern Ave. was too steep for a car to drive.

Speaking of the ICG development, the second proposal for use of Legacy funds was street-scape improvements at the corner of Westmoreland and Carroll to accommodate the anticipated additional traffic generated by that residential development. The mayor pointed out that this is already a dangerous intersection, and the residential development, which plans on locating the sole entrance to it’s underground parking garage just down the steep hill from that corner, will add significantly to the number of cars using the intersection.

Councilmember Seamens observed that though he understood the problems faced at that juncture, Carroll Avenue is a state road and that traffic control is therefore the responsibility of the state. He said he’d prefer to apply the Legacy Funds to the New Hampshire Corridor.

Thanks for the comments. I’d also like to see some back and forth on this. Readers, please comment!

You’re damn right there would be a protest if Starbucks proposed moving into Old Town Takoma, and your Gilbert would be leading it! We must not allow ANY (more) chain stores a foothold in our commercial areas. It is a fatal contagion and must be treated as such. Inoculate, fumigate, cleanse, scour, purge! Amputate if necessary! Gilbert is sure you are a fine fellow, Steve, but he suggests that if you want to be near a Starbucks and all those other fine national chains that have just about turned all of America’s cities into monoculture wastelands (with all the profits flowing to big corporations), he suggests you move to a shopping mall.

Breathe easy, though, Steve, there is hope for you, judging by your comments about the city newsletter’s claims that the New Hampshire Avenue corridors surrounding communities are “affluent.” After some rehabilitation, and perhaps if you wear a monitoring device, we might let you stay in Takoma Park.

For those readers who haven’t seen it, Steve refers to the front-page lead article in the city-published June newsletter, “Building Community on New Hampshire Avenue,” by Susan Holiday.

A pdf download of the city newsletter is online.

The article describes a special “redevelopment bus tour of the area” run, the article says, by the city staff for city councilmembers and Montgomery and Prince Georges county officials.

The article says “The majority of households within a half-mile radius of the southern City gateways qualify as affluent, according to data supplied by Claritas, a demographics research company.”

The word “affluent” is not in quotes, mind you. That may be the writer’s own word. But, I have to agree with Steve that the tone of this city staff presentation-on-wheels, as reported in this article, is that gentrification is the city’s goal.

This is odd, especially given previous statements from councilmember Doug Barry. He went out of his way at the January 3 city council meeting, when he presented his 10 point plan for NH Ave. redevelopment, to say that gentrification was NOT the goal. He also pointed out that, contrary to general perception, the corridor is not derelict - most of the shops are currently occupied by small businesses. There is not a lot of room for new development. So, if this article is accurate, it does appear that the city staff advocates pushing existing businesses out and replacing them with more upscale shops.

Barry’s 10 point plan was mostly concerned with providing affordable housing, improving pedestrian access (sidewalks and crossing bights), and streetscapes.

A parenthetical note, according to a recent Washington Post report, New Hampshire Towers, the city’s largest housing rental property, and the subject of Barry’s fourth point to “find an ownership solution” for, will be converting to condominiums.

So where does this apparent gentrification focus come from? It is possible that it is merely the newsletter reporter’s misinterpretation, but that is not likely, given that the newsletter is published by the city and they would be more careful than an independent publication (or blog, heh heh) to give the wrong impression about city policy.

Finally, as for Steve’s point favoring a city surcharge to subsidize low-income renters/home-buyers, I can only restate the problems with such a plan as outlined by the mayor and other councilmembers.

The idea that all citizens should shoulder the cost of housing subsidies (rather than burden landlords with it) has been voiced by councilmember Colleen Clay. Some think this is disingenuous because they think most citizens would balk at such an added tax burden. They also think this is a sly plan to reframe the discussion and to change the city’s affordable housing program from one that has landlords subsidizing poor tenants to one that has city taxpayers subsidizing affluent landlords.

But, that’s beside the point. Taxpayer subsidization for renters and home-buyers won’t work as well or as cheaply as rent control. The costs would skyrocket because we taxpayers would have to pay for the new city staff positions required to administer such a program. We would have to create new bureaucratic, intrusive renter and homeowner application procedures. There would be huge waiting lists and arguments about who should be prioritized. There would have to be yearly reviews of renters to insure they were still “deserving” enough for their subsidies. What a monumental (and expensive) headache! So what if the current rent control allows some “undeserving” renters in*. As the mayor said, ANY system will have problems missing the “target” population, and rent stabilization is the best available tool the city has.

OK, you bean-counter types who base your criticisms of rent control on scary hidden costs to taxpayers. You say the hidden costs are the result of lowered property values of both homeowners’ landlords’ properties. You say the low-income cachet of the rental housing brings down the value of the rental properties, meaning that landlords are not taxed as highly as they would otherwise be. Therefore homeowners have to pay higher taxes to make up for the shortfall, according to you. Also, the presence of low-income housing in the community brings down all property values, meaning that homeowners won’t get as much for their houses when they eventually sell.

First of all, my message to those who obsess that every rental property, chain-link fence, and unpainted shutter in the neighborhood means they won’t get absolute top dollar out of their eventual home sale is, “get a life!”

Second, if the proximity of low-income rental property is lowering your property values, then you, too are paying lower taxes.

Third, if rents are free of control and they rise to “market value” -the maximum amount landlords figure they can squeeze out of affluent renters - it would be bad for the economy! Picture a community in which renters and homeowners alike are paying such high rents and mortgage installments, they can’t afford to do anything but sit at home, eat rice and beans, and play Monopoly by candlelight. If everyone is rent- and mortgage-poor, nobody will shop at local stores, the economy will collapse, wipe out the commercial tax-base, and then taxpayers will REALLY have a tax burden.