[Vision2020] subdivisions (Was "Tribune Uncovers")

g. crabtree jampot at adelphia.net
Fri May 26 05:37:05 PDT 2006


Fair enough, walk on.

gc
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "keely emerinemix" <kjajmix1 at msn.com>
To: <jampot at adelphia.net>; <london at moscow.com>; 
<jeanlivingston at turbonet.com>; <mattd2107 at hotmail.com>; 
<vision2020 at moscow.com>
Sent: Thursday, May 25, 2006 8:11 PM
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] subdivisions (Was "Tribune Uncovers")


> I'm not an urban planner and, worse, I'm a subdivision dweller and 
> committed . . . well, "streetwalker" probably isn't the ideal word . . . 
> but I'm someone who enjoys a good walk through town.  The point, I think, 
> is that many subdivisions, my own included, aren't linked well to town. 
> Of course, that's probably the reason they're "subdivisions" -- parcels of 
> land, formerly open, divided and platted into separate residential 
> parcels.
>
> Having now exhausted the limits of my expertise in the field of planning, 
> I freely acknowledge that I don't know the answers, Gary.  I just want to 
> try to get away from the "no-growth" vs. "big growth" polarization that 
> tends to define the discussion.
>
> keely
>
>
> From: "g. crabtree" <jampot at adelphia.net>
> To: "keely emerinemix" 
> <kjajmix1 at msn.com>,<london at moscow.com>,<jeanlivingston at turbonet.com>,<mattd2107 at hotmail.com>,<vision2020 at moscow.com>
> Subject: Re: [Vision2020] subdivisions (Was "Tribune Uncovers")
> Date: Thu, 25 May 2006 18:39:29 -0700
>
> Ms. Mix, I am truly perplexed. At no point in my afternoon travels did I 
> leave the city limits of Moscow and yet I drove through the majority of 
> Moscow's new development. There are sidewalks next to all the streets that 
> I traveled that connected the new to the old. Since the "town proper" is 
> already developed where do you suggest we locate new homes that does not 
> require a little bit of travel? Particularly since nobody wants any 
> commercial development next to their home. If you have a technique by 
> which you can float new development over the top of the old and tie it 
> together with chute and ladders can you share it with the rest of us?
>
> gc
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "keely emerinemix" <kjajmix1 at msn.com>
> To: <jampot at adelphia.net>; <london at moscow.com>; 
> <jeanlivingston at turbonet.com>; <mattd2107 at hotmail.com>; 
> <vision2020 at moscow.com>
> Sent: Thursday, May 25, 2006 6:15 PM
> Subject: Re: [Vision2020] subdivisions (Was "Tribune Uncovers")
>
>
>>
>>I think Bill was pretty clear that he didn't mean sidewalks meandering 
>>through subdivisions -- we can all see that those exist -- but that the 
>>sidewalk-laced new subdivisions are not easily connected to other parts of 
>>town.  The concern is that subdivisions are built with "roads to nowhere," 
>>requiring car travel or the addition of footbridges or paths to link the 
>>subdivision to the town proper.
>>
>>Whatever disagreements I might have with some "smart growth" proponents 
>>over school facilities, I appreciate the reasonable and coherent arguments 
>>that most have advanced, Bill London included.  It's easy to lose patience 
>>with those who go incendiary with their rhetoric, or whose idea of "smart 
>>growth" is really no growth at all, with additional 
>>stream-of-consciousness rambling about "our hills" and "our fields" and 
>>"tasting of the land to see what it speaks to us."  (God knows I've lost 
>>patience with it, sometimes publiclly). But Bill London and most of the 
>>people I know personally in MCA aren't like that, and while I regret the 
>>lack of support for new school buildings, I appreciate the work involved 
>>in keeping Moscow from being flooded with big boxes and "cheap crap" 
>>merchandisers.  Above all, I don't regret at all the opportunity to 
>>continue the dialogue.
>>
>>keely
>>
>>keely
>>
>>From: "g. crabtree" <jampot at adelphia.net>
>>To: "Bill London" <london at moscow.com>,        "Bruce and Jean Livingston" 
>><jeanlivingston at turbonet.com>,        "Matt Decker" 
>><mattd2107 at hotmail.com>, <vision2020 at moscow.com>
>>Subject: Re: [Vision2020] RE: Tribune uncovers new Moscowpro-growth gro
>>Date: Thu, 25 May 2006 17:07:03 -0700
>>
>>Mr. London, I'm not sure what you're talking about. My afternoons travels 
>>took me through several of the "subdivision developments sprawled around 
>>town perimeter" as you put it. They all had sidewalks on at least one side 
>>of the street. Most on both. I am sure that the developers all paid the 
>>city a fee in lieu of land dedication for parks as per requirements. All 
>>were "connected to town." I suppose that every time someone wanted to put 
>>up some houses we could require them to improve all the infrastructure 
>>from the furthest point in the city to their new development but I'm 
>>guessing that this would make new homes a tad spendy. The developments, as 
>>they are, seem to be meeting the requirements of people quite nicely, 
>>judging by the fact that folks are only to willing to live in them. Sounds 
>>to me as though your vision of smart growth, affordable housing, and what 
>>people actually want doesn't  mix very well.
>>
>>  If parks and paths and sidewalks are so important to you, why haven't 
>> you and your neighbors banded together and done so in your own 
>> neighborhood? There is vacant land not too far to the east and west of 
>> you to acquire for a park. Each of you could be responsible for your own 
>> sidewalk and you could all chip in for a bike path and to connect to the 
>> sidewalk that the developer on Hershi Rd. (new development) thoughtfully 
>> stubbed out toward your neighborhood to help with being "connected." I 
>> think that should you do this you would better appreciate the kind of 
>> additional cost you are asking the developer to incur and pass on to the 
>> new potential home owners. Why ask others to do what you aren't willing 
>> to do yourself?
>>
>>  G. Crabtree
>>   ----- Original Message -----
>>   From: Bill London
>>   To: g. crabtree ; Bruce and Jean Livingston ; Matt Decker ; 
>> vision2020 at moscow.com
>>   Sent: Thursday, May 25, 2006 11:57 AM
>>   Subject: Re: [Vision2020] RE: Tribune uncovers new Moscowpro-growth gro
>>
>>
>>   G-
>>   What you suggest for Moscow's growth ("let the people with a real 
>> vested interest in any given project move ahead ") is just what happened 
>> under former council and result was series of subdivision developments 
>> sprawled around town perimeter.  Not one has a park.  Not one is 
>> connected bysidewalk/trail/path to town.  All require rest of us to 
>> provide infrastructure for them (think Joseph street bridge).  That is 
>> Dumb Growth.
>>   BL
>>     ----- Original Message -----
>>     From: g. crabtree
>>     To: Bruce and Jean Livingston ; Matt Decker ; vision2020 at moscow.com
>>     Sent: Thursday, May 25, 2006 7:33 AM
>>     Subject: Re: [Vision2020] RE: Tribune uncovers new Moscowpro-growth 
>> gro
>>
>>
>>     Bruce, It's clear from your post that you do not feel that the MCA is 
>> a "no growth" organization. But it's equally clear that it's a long way 
>> from being pro growth. What it appears to me to be is a growth by 
>> strangling committee group. A here is our vision of how property that is 
>> not ours should look and be used club. If you stand in the way of the 
>> kinds of development that developer's actually are willing to put their 
>> money on the line for, can you honestly say you're in favor of growth? To 
>> proclaim yourselves as "smart growth" advocates is to say that you're in 
>> favor of a set of confused and contradictory goals design to leave 
>> everyone dissatisfied. It would seem to me that pro growth is to let the 
>> people with a real vested interest in any given project move ahead under 
>> a straight forward and not overly restrictive set of guidelines and let 
>> the community vote with its patronage. In a society where failure is 
>> seldom rewarded, mistakes will likely not be repeated. To try and make 
>> everybody happy on the front end of every project is to create needless 
>> road blocks and stagnation.
>>
>>     Gary Crabtree
>>       ----- Original Message -----
>>       From: Bruce and Jean Livingston
>>       To: Matt Decker ; vision2020 at moscow.com
>>       Sent: Tuesday, May 23, 2006 12:45 AM
>>       Subject: RE: [Vision2020] RE: Tribune uncovers new Moscowpro-growth 
>> gro
>>
>>
>>       Whoa Nellie!
>>
>>       Matt, I think you need to stop buying what certain "growth at all 
>> costs" types are selling in their inaccurate smear of the MCA as an 
>> organization favoring no-growth.  We are by no means a 
>> "no-growth"-seeking organization.
>>
>>       We seek to bring open public discussion and planning -- long range 
>> planning especially -- back into the process.  We seek to incorporate 
>> into our City better pedestrian and bicycle corridors, sidewalks, mixed 
>> uses and cluster developments that use forward thinking combinations of 
>> higher densities, and more shared, open space.   We seek sustainable 
>> community development, not stagnation.  There is a continuum of positions 
>> on the growth spectrum, from no growth on the one hand to unregulated, 
>> absolute power to develop one's land without regard to the effect on 
>> one's neighbors on the other.  MCA is not for the former;  I would hazard 
>> a guess that GMA is not for the latter.  Time will tell.
>>
>>       Up until recently, this City has operated on a basis that had 
>> relegated the zoning code to an advisory document, spot-zoning and 
>> re-zoning property willy-nilly at the request of any developer --  
>> regardless of the conflict any particular proposal may have had with the 
>> Comprehensive Plan.  Evidence of that sad pattern can be found with the 
>> prior council's frittering away of the West A street commercial property 
>> that has been turned into one apartment complex after another.  The 
>> "pro-growth at all costs" crowd decries the current "lack" of motor 
>> business land in the City and uses that alleged "lack" as a basis for 
>> asserting the necessity of re-zoning the Thompson property.  Those same 
>> "pro-growth regardless of the costs" folks include those who spent much 
>> of our best motor business land on short term, short-sighted, frenzies of 
>> granting every request to turn A Street into apartments  -- in an area 
>> that has no adequate pedestrian crossing of the largest road in our City 
>> for the numerous pedestrian students who were locating in those 
>> apartments.
>>
>>       Smart Growth we advocate, not "no growth." 
>> http://www.idahosmartgrowth.org/
>>
>>       The best place for heavy commercial growth was always along the 
>> Pullman Highway and behind Third Street on A, as was set forth in the 
>> Comprehensive Plan.  The recently annexed university-owned land north of 
>> the Palouse Mall is an obvious motor business area, and it serves far 
>> wiser planning and strategic needs by its location as close to Pullman as 
>> we can place it, while retaining a Latah County location.   The good 
>> folks of Troy will drive through Moscow and past our downtown to get to 
>> the Moscow motor business developments near the state line.  The 
>> Pullmanites and WSU students, particularly those using the bus, seem much 
>> less likely to drive or hitch a ride to the far side of eastern Moscow, 
>> especially as their choices expand in Whitman County.
>>
>>       Being opposed to a misguided and ill-conceived, 77 acre motor 
>> business re-zone on the east side of town does not make one anti-growth. 
>> It makes one opposed to that particular development.
>>
>>       Likewise, as evidenced by prior discussion on this list, expressing 
>> concern and seeking solutions about water usage on the Palouse is not 
>> anti-growth.  In fact, it is pro-growth.  The Seattle model, referenced 
>> by Nils Peterson and Mark Solomon on V2020 discussions, is worthy of 
>> pursuit here.  Seattle was able to grow -- substantially -- while 
>> actually cutting its water usage through thoughtful, long-term 
>> conservation policies.  We, too, can do the same.  Given our scarce and 
>> declining water supply, why not seek to implement water conserving 
>> policies that will enable future growth, rather than blindly play a game 
>> of chicken with an aquifer of unknown size and dimensions?  Preserving 
>> our water through thoughtful and proven conservation methods preserves 
>> our ability to grow for the long term.  Our County Commissioners, two of 
>> whom are Republicans, have listened and learned from Diane French, Mark 
>> Solomon and others on the water issue, so don't be so quick to dismiss 
>> Diane and Mark as having ideas that take root only on the left, when the 
>> evidence is to the contrary and their hard work on water management 
>> benefits us all.
>>
>>       Personally, I also welcome discussion of a reservoir.  I oppose 
>> injection of the pristine waters of the Grand Ronde aquifer with 
>> relatively filthy runoff from muddy fields laden with various herbicides, 
>> pesticides, fertilizers, and assorted other pollutants.  But opposing 
>> injection of the Grand Ronde does not make me anti-growth, Matt, it makes 
>> me opposed to that particular water management option among a myriad of 
>> choices that enhance the possibility of and favor long-term growth.
>>
>>       I am pro-growth.  Most in the MCA are as well.  Several years ago 
>> the MCA Board took a position favoring growth.  We accepted the Smart 
>> Growth model, and rejected a no growth alternative.  That position has 
>> not changed.
>>
>>       We in the MCA welcome the GMA to the discussion; undoubtedly the 
>> community at large does, too.  Informed and open discussion is 
>> enlightening and useful to all.  Overall, my sense is that the Moscow 
>> community is glad that the MCA arrived and changed the discussion from 
>> private conversations of a few policymakers, movers and shakers to a much 
>> larger group of people throughout the community who are all engaged in 
>> the discussion.  The GMA will undoubtedly add its voice to the 
>> discussion, which can only be a good thing.  Let the marketplace of ideas 
>> percolate and see what happens.  But don't mis-apprehend the MCA as being 
>> anti-growth, for we are not.
>>
>>       Bruce Livingston
>>
>>
>>       Matt Decker said:
>>       | Remember this(GMA) group was established because of the Mark 
>> Solomans, Diane
>>       | Frenchs, and the MCA groups that back up their no growth 
>> attitudes. Smart
>>       | Growth, Please. Disguise it however you like, but it just adds up 
>> to little
>>       | or nil growth. The attitudes of these people are just to 
>> aggressive for
>>       | Moscow. Yes some of the people in the group have lives outside of 
>> the
>>       | computer, that depend on growth, including myself.
>>       |
>>       | See what we can do first before belittling us to a bunch of money 
>> crazed
>>       | good ol boy. This group also wants what is best for Moscow.
>>       |
>>       | MD
>>       |
>>       | Matt
>>
>>
>>
>>--------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>
>>       _____________________________________________________
>>        List services made available by First Step Internet,
>>        serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.
>>                      http://www.fsr.net
>>                 mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
>>       /////////////////////////////////////////////////////
>>
>>
>>
>>----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>
>>     _____________________________________________________
>>      List services made available by First Step Internet,
>>      serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.
>>                    http://www.fsr.net
>>               mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
>>     /////////////////////////////////////////////////////
>>
>>
>>_____________________________________________________
>>  List services made available by First Step Internet,
>>  serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.
>>                http://www.fsr.net
>>           mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
>>¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
>>
>>_________________________________________________________________
>>On the road to retirement? Check out MSN Life Events for advice on how to 
>>get there! http://lifeevents.msn.com/category.aspx?cid=Retirement
>>
>>
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE! 
> http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/
>
> 




More information about the Vision2020 mailing list