Alderman Conway Calls Meeting on Halliday Parking
Earlier this month I reported on a controversial, and not approved by the city, parking lot that was paved at a condo project in Tower Grove East (see post). After a long Board of Adjustment hearing, all sides met and thought they had reached a compromise — the concrete would be torn out in favor of angled parking on the street.
When I was told everything had been settled I knew it had not been. Why? Because the developer had not withdrawn his appeal for the denial of the permit to construct the parking pad which he had alread built.
Residents on the street received a hand delivered letter yesterday regarding a last-minute meeting on the site organized by Alderman Conway (D-8th Ward). Unfortunately I cannot make this meeting. Too bad really, I hear Conway can get a bit hot at these events. He should have to walk through the nearby intersection at Magnolia (see post).
Click here to view letter w/drawings from Ald. Conway on this issue — giving current residents two choices, keep the parking and stain the concrete or rip it out and do angled parking. Of course, in my view, this is a bigger issue than simply this block — others walk from adjacent blocks to get to Grand. The meeting is scheduled to take place on the concrete pad in question at 5:45pm today!
Thanks Steve. The irritating part is many neighbors are out of town, or cannot be home from work in time o nsuch short notice. I have another meeting; another neighbor has a hockey game. It has been done purposefully to create the facade of concensus. Or to wear us down until we throw our hands up and not care anymore.
The more folks that are there, the better. We need people to talk over Conway.
How does it really cost $10,000 to relocate a fire hydrant, I wonder?
Can someone explain to me why our town’s daily paper of record is just now getting around to reporting on Blairmont, which has been widely covered for almost a year on this and other web sites?
Just wondering.
Joe–the fire hydrant is a main line. That’s what we’ve been told. This is not a big deal, actually, because the alderman pledged up to $40K for this end of Halliday project (a big waste of money, in my mind…), with monuments and improved parking (like that pad). But the monuments came in under the estimate, if they ever get built, and so he has money left over for the hydrant. It is a non-issue.
The alarm system company truck that just pulled off GRand going the wrong way and pulled into the parking pad is an issue, though.
can somebody give a synopsis on what happened at the meeting? just curious.
At the start of the meeting Alderman Conway walked the crowd through the two “options,†as he saw the situation.
There was pretty much no interest from the crowd in the option of staining the concrete.
The majority of the crowd (with the exception of one condo resident who uses the pad to park and one or two others) advocated removing the pad, installing four or five angled parking spots in front of the condo using the tree lawn, and installing the monuments.
Alderman Conway seemed to be pushing a plan to create five angled parking spaces in front of the condos. This plan would involve approval of the neighbor to the east, as one spot would be directly in front of his house. During the meeting Vern (condo developer) told the crowd that he had only sold three parking spots bundled with the three units that were already sold.
The meeting ended with Alderman Conway and Vern telling Patrick Moore (President of the Tower Grove Neighborhood Association) that they would draft a letter to the TGENA prior to the July 11 public hearing stating that they would removed the illegal paved lawn, install as many angled parking spots as they could, and install the monuments.
As of today I have no knowledge that the letter has been received by TGENA.
My gut instinct based on how this has played out (deceitful and behind the scenes) so far is that Alderman Conway and Vern will show up at the public hearing tomorrow, announce to the Board of Adjustment that they wanted to install five angled parking spots but were unable to get the approval of the neighbor to the east therefore the only option will be to keep the illegal pad. They seem to be driven to settle for the cheapest option for the developer, which is keep the existing illegal pad.
Another issue emerged from the meeting.
The four or five spots created on the street would be “vacated†from the city and become part of the condo property. Several people were against vacating any land from a city street to a private developer. After all, if a resident of Halliday Avenue rehabs his or her house, they have no chance of getting a reserved parking spot in front of their house so why should a developer (especially a developer who engaged a large scale project without addressing parking concerns).
I don’t feel that the city should give away land on its public streets just because someone sells a parking space on a city street bundled with a condo – that would be crazy right? City street parking would vanish in a hurry!
If you do not like this illegal paved lawn and the precedent is sets for our beautiful historic neighborhoods I would strongly encourage you to attend the meeting tomorrow at City Hall, 1:30 PM in room 208 (double check room at City Hall to be sure). Help us keep this paved lawn from being forced on us and our block, or one will be arriving on a block near you soon!