|
| |
11/29/04 What about saving our heritage?
Lots of people have me on their information
e-mail list, so I get announcements about doings about town among
community activists. Recently, I got a report on a series of
community meetings regarding teardowns. These are
very insider terms used as shorthand for "we know better than you what your
property should look like".
Anyway, one of the circulated info-mails named some of the people meeting who
want to CONTROL your world. When I recognized one name as a TENANT who
doesn't even own a car, much less real estate or a home, I was outraged. I
know, I know -- Sharon Boyd is prone to outbursts of outrage, but this was
definitely a bigger outburst than usual.
I replied to the person who sent me the info-mail with the following:
|
Until recently, I
supported preservation efforts, but I now oppose control
freaks who want to tell homeowners what they can and cannot do with
their residential property. I always oppose
changing from single-family to multi-family, but as long as someone builds
a single-family residence within side, front and
back yard setback restrictions, they should be left alone to do
just that.
If you buy property in a neighborhood with deed restrictions and an
existing conservation district, follow the rules
you bought under. I live in a 50+ year old
neighborhood. Many houses have foundation problems and other types
of neglect because we had so many aging homeowners who sold to
buyers who could not take care of the houses.
To ask future homeowners to live with
houses that don't meet their needs or wants is wrong.
I'm considering building a second floor on my home because I want more
space in the house I love and neighborhood I
love in an area convenient to me and my work.
If the conservation Nazis have their way, I cannot make my house
meet my needs and it will diminish in value for a future sale.
Whether a house is 1-story or 2-story or more should be no one's concern,
except the homeowner. Limiting new construction to existing
setbacks is restriction enough. People don't
want to live in shoe boxes anymore, much less
neighborhoods where all the houses look the same.
There is some racism among the Conservation Nazis because Dallas,
Carrollton, Farmers Branch are increasingly Hispanic. Many
Hispanic families have several children, as well
as multi-generations in one
household. Limiting houses in older neighborhoods to one-story and
cottage size effectively excludes many Hispanic
families.
I no longer trust government or "community leaders" who confuse
preservation with control. A friend of mine
says "If you want to save an old house -- buy
it." I think she's right on the money.
I particularly resent tenants who have never owned anything
(not even a car), trying to dictate to property owners what their
home is supposed to look like. Squatting in an
area does not give you a say in what others can
do with their property, when they are not increasing density --
just making their homes more suitable to their needs.
Something to think about.
|
The lady circulating the
info-mail is one of the good guys, but it's bad news for Dallas when a bunch of
busybody do-gooders can make decisions that impact your property rights and you
aren't even aware of their plans until you read about it in
The Dallas Managed News
after it's been approved by the city council.
Never assume these do-gooders have all the facts. They have an agenda and
only invite like-minded folks to play with them.
| It may seem to be contradictory for me to support homeowners on Forest Lane who
are fighting those mini-lots on the North side. The developer wants to
change the zoning to allow increased density on his property. I don't
support increased density anywhere in our overly-congested city. We should
be reducing density. The guy bought property in an area where the normal
lot size is large. He knew where he was buying. If he wanted to
develop mini-lot homes, he should have picked another part of town. |
|
|
Citizen J:
Great comments this week, Sharon.
Couldn't agree with you more.
Those damn builders/developers
don't have to answer to anyone. Hell,
they don't even have
to be "licensed" in Texas!
I have recently become a licensed
Realtor and was SHOCKED to
learn builders or developers don't even
have to be licensed in Texas, let alone
regulated.
They are doing the same thing over
here all along Northwest Highway in the Midway
area tearing down 1/4 and 1/2 acre lots and
throwing up zero lot line townhouses
priced between 400 K and 1 Million. 10-14 units
where there used to be 2 houses.
Buy the land cheap, develop it,
cram as much *@#* on it as possible, and then
"flip it" at a criminal price and move on to do
the same HARM elsewhere!!!
|
|
If the land is already zoned for what he wants and he wants to build purple
townhouses as ugly as the toad stool house on Beverly (Park Cities), then let
him. Unfortunately for this particular developer, he does need a zoning
change and a bunch of nearby property owners are opposing him big time.
Unfortunately for the opposition, ward politics at City Hall will overcome the
2/3 votes at council needed to override 20% opposition from property owners
within 500 feet. Their council representative is Lois Finkelman who put
Bruce Wilkie on the P&Z (Mayor Miller made him chair). His public comments
indicate he will support the zoning change request. Even though she claims
to be an environmentalist, Finkelman will probably follow Wilkie's lead and
support this really bad zoning case which will result in huge loss of trees and
diminish an "urban forest" that real people actually see every day.
Finkelman claims to be an environmental consultant -- but obviously not for the
side of those who want to protect our urban forests.
The Preservation Nazis are not saying a word about this desecration to the
status quo of Forest Lane. Instead, they are trying to tell homeowners
in old neighborhoods they cannot replace the house on their own property with something more suitable to
their needs and wants. That means those young, dual income families will
spend their money in the suburbs where they can get more city service and build
homes that fit their needs.
While the Preservation Nazis are ranting about "teardowns" (replacing old houses
with new houses that may not look like the old house), Our Downtown Betters and
Our Mayor are still planning to "tear down" the viaducts that span the Trinity
Trough. The Houston Street Viaduct (formerly the Oak Cliff Viaduct) was
built in 1912 and was "billed as the longest reinforced concrete structure in
the world." [Big D, Triumphs and Troubles of an American Supercity in
the 20th Century by Darwin Payne, p. 34.]
This an historic structure
that should be celebrated today as it was in 1912, but the Preservation Nazis
are supporting Our Mayor's plans to see it demolished and replaced with a String
Thing Bridge that has nothing to do with Dallas, Texas.
|
The String Thing Bridges by Calatrava of Cut and Run Spain are not appropriate
for the job at hand. No more appropriate than the entire Trinity Project,
whichever version we have seen since Ron Kirk's big lie in 1998. The
current hypothesis (they still don't have a plan) is all a bunch of loosely
connected parts that no one knows will work. If one component fails, the
whole thing fails. |
|
|
James Northrup:
Last Wednesday - DMN Metro Section
- I 30 Calatrava article says matter of
factly that "Woodall Rodgers Bridge is fully funded".
Again, by whom? When? |
|
Texans have shared in the $14+ billions that have gone into the Boston Big Dig.
|
|
Big Dig Leaks Even More Widespread
Wednesday, Nov. 17, 2004 |
BOSTON (AP) - Leaks in the Big Dig highway tunnel system are more
widespread than state officials have acknowledged, and top construction
managers had warned as far back as 1998 about problems that could cause
failures in tunnel waterproofing, the Boston Globe reported Wednesday.
Earlier this month, independent
engineers hired by the state to investigate a huge September leak in the
Interstate 93 tunnel said the $14.6 billion Big Dig tunnels, which sit
almost entirely within the salty water table underlying downtown Boston,
were riddled with more than 400 leaks. Project managers and state officials
have insisted that the tunnels are safe for motorists.
Now, documents obtained by The Boston
Globe show there are nearly 700 leaks in a single 1,000-foot section of the
I-93 tunnels beneath the South Station train terminal.
And records show that since early
2001 project managers have collectively signed off on at least $10 million
in cost overruns to repair leaks and water damage in the costliest highway
project in U.S. history.
...In September, an 8-inch leak flooded the
northbound I-93 tunnel.... |
Everyone is pointing fingers at
who is to blame, but it was risky business from the get-go, and it looks like
our $14+ billions are just the beginning of what it will take to make the tunnel
safe for vehicular traffic. That's being optimistic and assuming it can be
fixed.
What Our Mayor and the ODB have planned for the Trinity Trough is just as
experimental and iffy and very likely to cause more problems than it fixes.
In Los Angeles, they are having to deal with an environmental problem caused by
another Euro Egg Head who doesn't understand Texas or California heat.
|
|
|
LOS
ANGELES - The
mirror-like, curving steel walls of the Walt Disney Concert Hall may soon
lose some of their luster.
The Los Angeles County Board of
Supervisors is considering whether to sandblast portions of the walls to
reduce glare that has been blamed for blinding drivers and increasing heat
in neighboring buildings.
... After receiving complaints from a nearby
homeowners group, the county hired consultants to work with architect Frank
Gehry before the hall's dedication in October 2003 on reducing the glare
from the building.
A gray mesh fabric was placed over
one curved tower across from the condominium unit as an interim solution.
... Gehry could not be reached for comment by the
Daily News of Los Angeles. Among his more famous works is the Guggenheim
Museum in Bilbao, Spain. ... |
Please the link to see the
picture of the ridiculous design of the Hall. Putting a reflective metal
skin on a building in Los Angeles makes as much sense as turning the glass wall
of the Meyerson into the Southern sun in Dallas.
We "little people" are not supposed to challenge the great minds of our
superiors. We are not expected to be able to share the great visions of
our superiors because we don't share their intellect. You know -- a lack
of breeding or the right schools and all that.
We are just supposed to pay the bills for their screw-ups.
It may seem a stretch from a developer wanting to ruin Forest Lane to the
Trinity Project to the Boston Big Dig to Frank Gehry's monstrosity in Los
Angeles, but the common denominator is a lack of common sense.
Something happens to some people when they get some authority.
They leave their common sense at home. They buy into the giant scam that
Our Downtown Betters are smarter than us, have more inside information than us
and do the vision thing better than us -- because they are richer than us and
that makes them smarter than us. Basically, the vision thing
is a product of the gene pool thing -- or so they would have us
believe.
Common sense seems to be lost on the Preservation Nazis, too. They only
care about control, not about real needs of real people.
Don't get me wrong, I love old things. I love our Trinity Viaducts.
I don't understand the ambivalence of the Preservation Nazis about the pending
demolition of these turn of the century structures.
I love my old house (50+ years), even it still needs lots of work. I
bought the property for the house, not for the lot, but I love working in the
yard more than doing house work. Still, it's my house, and I have the
right to change it any way I want, provided I don't violate deed restrictions.
Other people should not tell my neighborhood what we are supposed to look like
-- certainly no loser who has never owned a piece of property in his life.
As a recovering "community activist" who now only serves on two or three
committees, rather than dozens, I know these Preservation Nazis well. Most
originally have good intentions, but they start feeding on each other and morph
from community activists to control freaks.
Hypocrisy is second nature to control freaks and Preservation Nazis.
sb
| |
|
