Lakewood's Plans Highlighted

[Natalie Schrimpf]

See link from recent Fresh Water Cleveland article:

http://www.freshwatercleveland.com/devn ... 12711.aspx

(If you can't open this please cut and paste in your browser)

[Jim DeVito]

62k for gentrification? Sounds like a steal...

[Bill Call]

62k for gentrification? Sounds like a steal...

The $62,000 is just money for someone to draw the pictures showing how they would like Madison Avenue to look. I've heard that the City was told that they will receive $0 for implementing the plan.

Kind of like spending $35,000 to design street signs for Detroit Avenue.

[Jim O'Bryan]

62k for gentrification? Sounds like a steal...

The $62,000 is just money for someone to draw the pictures showing how they would like Madison Avenue to look. I've heard that the City was told that they will receive $0 for implementing the plan.

Kind of like spending $35,000 to design street signs for Detroit Avenue.

Or the money already spent by the City on Dru Siley's plans for Birdtown.
http://media.lakewoodobserver.com/media/docs_1267245500.pdf

Actually it is amazing the new level of regionalism and gentrification that is being spewed
by Cleveland Foundation, CLE+ Team Neo etc. Of course they get millions to convince us
that this will be the cure for all of our ills.

In fact they are getting ready to disburse, 75,000 poor people as they rebuild "Greater
University Circle" into a whole new city. Be ready, hey will be shipping the good families
from there here, and many members of this community are aiding, as they are getting
paid to sell the city out, for a few sheckles and shiny objects.

I mean why else are so many Lakewood civic projects and groups working so hard on
driving down Lakewood's property values?

What is most upsetting is the massive push to "own and censor" out the voice of the
people through project that are designed to look like they are amplifying the voices
of the people.
.

[Bill Call]

In fact they are getting ready to disburse, 75,000 poor people as they rebuild "Greater
University Circle" into a whole new city.

Some of the plans for Madison look pretty good. I don't want to critcize those efforts but most of them are a waste of time. The birdtown area and victorian area of streets like Grace would have waiting lists of people wanting to move in any other City. What is the difference?

I was little surprised at the muted reaction from City officials when they first learned of Mental Health Services Homeless Resettlement Program. A local agency aligns itself with various developers and City planners to cleanse Tremont and Univerity Circle of its "undesireables" and its not news.

The "region" has big plans for Lakewood. It may come as a surprise too many to find out that those plans don't include a vibrant City with a healthy middle class.

All the good that might be done by street scaping, bike paths, store front renovations and small business assistance will be undone by the next busload of refugees from the "Regions" development projects.

If those new restraunts are to survive and those storefronts are to have customers the City must have people with the money to buy. That's not what Mental Health Services has in mind.

[Jim O'Bryan]

Bil

The Birdtown Plans are nice. This was done by Dru Silley who is currently heading up
planning. You should talk with him some time. Good guy, pretty realistic, understands
what he is doing and what is going on around us.

Will we define ourselves as Lakewood, or West Cleveland? Current trend in allows the
city to retain names, but be pared up. Little Italy combined with East Cleveland, Hough,
Glenville, Buckeye, Fairfax into a new community. The biggest problem then becomes
branding and teaching people to use the name. This can be sped along with the massive
displacement of the people that grew up in those communities. Now if you could just
devalue that property to speed up blight... This is what happens whenpeople that do not
live in that area plan for that area.

One of the beautiful things about a densely populated, small city like Lakewood it can
define their terms. The big question is will they? Does our new clout on all levels get us
great terms and programs. Or "the cream of the crop of prisoners" for the new county jail?

The future is ours(?)

.

[Bryan Schwegler]

So let me get this straight...

The city is actually taking some initiative to improve the east Madison area, which has sorely needed some TLC for awhile, and all we can do is complain and share conspiracy theories?

Why can't we just be happy about this?

[Jim O'Bryan]

So let me get this straight...

The city is actually taking some initiative to improve the east Madison area, which has sorely needed some TLC for awhile, and all we can do is complain and share conspiracy theories?

Why can't we just be happy about this?

Bryan

I am overjoyed, as is Bill. Even complimented Dru for the plans he has already developed.

What I am talking about is not a conspiracy but a plan I was paid to consult on. My point
we need to build out Birdtown now.

Bill's point if I understand, great idea loves the plans, no money.

I do not think anyone is against any ideas for the area.

I posted Dru's plans. Damn nice. He also had many open meetings with members of the
neighborhood that had real dialogue and real discussion.

AS for Greater University Circle, again gain a great plan, really nice however, you cannot
rebuild 7 communities with $300,000 - $2 mill homes without shuffling some people
around. Nothing negative about the project, just the fact that 70,000 people will be
moving, are we ready?

Secret Conspiracy, hardly it is all very out there.

.

[Bryan Schwegler]

Very few plans start with the money to fund them. So of course there's no money to actually do it. What good business or government would give a blank check without knowing what it's going to be used for? This is a grant to plan what we would like to do...and from what I understand, that plan had a great deal of community involvement from those in the neighborhood.

Once the planning is done and the way forward mapped out, that's when it comes time to get the money to move forward. It's a little misleading to say there's no money for the project when no money has even really been asked for yet nor even all the possibilities explored. So let's just see what happens.

But all I really see in this thread are the same old tired conspiracy theories about how some secret evil cabal somewhere in a smokey downtown room are planning the utter destruction of Lakewood. Or is it LakewoodAlive trying to destroy Birdtown? Or is it Ed FitzGerald as County Executive planning the strip mining of his home town?

But in all seriousness, it seems whenever a new project or planning phase is announced, there's always a tendency to try and look for the conspiracy behind it. Why not just look at the positive to see what it could do? In this case I see a very positive plan developed in partnership with the community along east Madison. It certainly doesn't feel like anyone coming in with a devious plan, it feels like a plan expressing the desires of those in the very neighborhood it would impact.

I would ask, if, as Bill states, these changes are a waste of time, what would you do to improve the area of east Madison?

[Jim O'Bryan]

Bryan

I am not going through this again or to beat a dead horse, but in this case the Observer
works. Stop by the office and I will show you the notes, the plans, and the entire scope
of the Grater University Circle Project. No from there it is up to you to define whether or
not it is a conspiracy. I pulled out, when the actual people in the community would not get
their voices out in the project. Same reason we pulled out of Ohio City. AGS wants "Observers"
to be the voices of the businesses, residents, CDCs etc together. However that is contrary to
the plans.

Which takes us to the hot topic of gentrification. Is it good or bad? Hard to say. Everyone
wants their community bettered. Everyone. But people also want to be able to be able to
stay where they grew up, and are comfortable. So that becomes how does one move people
around, with force? with economics? with color or lifestyle? This is what "The Slaughter of
Cities" is about. How to use people and their differences to move people around, use them
to devalue property, while redeveloping the land where they were. Again, Developers are not
evil, they merely must develop to make money. The cry that came out of the WestEnd was
not NO DEVELOPMENT, it was RESPONSIBLE DEVELOPMENT. Not a hideous message.

As with the Detroit Street Scape Bill mentioned. Plans and ideas are great, but so is the
funding. This city seems to be somewhat at a loss for getting the funds to carry out the
plans. Certainly with the Cleveland Foundation spending money in Lakewood the possibility
is greater than ever to get funding, but that is also because we appear as West Cleveland
on their regional plan maps. Detroit Streetscape is almost 5 years old, not funded, and
think how much the world has changed in 5 years. I was speaking with two members of
Grow Lakewood that will be running for mayor this fall. Both sighted the study as getting
away from retail, and concentrating on office space. I mentioned the glut of office space
downtown, and that their are many companies like mine that build collaborative software
so no one needs to go to an office, ever. Then can work the same way you and I work, at
the Root, at home, the beach, wherever you can get a signal. Currently we are making the
same workability from anywhere into I-phone apps, so you can run your business while
at a ball game or a play. 95% of the Observer can be run from a four-year old blackberry.

As for Ed selling out his city. That quote is a direct quote from Ed when he was running for
mayor. The idea was to build a prison south of City Hall running to Franklin. We were
talking about ideas and he told me that one. I said you are kidding about the prison, and
he explained the $$$$ we are paying to house our prisoners, and that we could make $$$.
When I asked about releasing criminals out the front door into the neighborhood his
answer was, "With his connections to law enforcement, he could make sure we got the
cream of the crop of county prisoners." While the quote might be news to you the
conversation is not. It is public record. Now the good news is, most of those prisons are
now losing money, so it was a bad idea. BUT what if we had leveled Alameda to Lakewood
funded the build out, and now lost money?! Back to that responsible development.

Conspiracy? You tell me. Same old conspiracy? It would seem history would back up this
has been going on for centuries.

All I am saying. Lakewood needs to be ready, and understand, "West Cleveland"? or
Lakewood? How do we handle the flow of 75,000 financially strained families? How does
this play out for our plans to save housing stock? How do we compete with Tax-Abatement of 10, 15, 20, 25, and now 30 years? You should read "Slaughter of Cities" it is
not a hideous book about conspiracies. It merely explains the cycle of development, and
shows you case after case after case after case over 200 years. But those I know that
have read it see Lakewood, and what is going on in a whole new light.

And we need to understand where we stand. I mean a $500,000 home, in Greater University
Circle, with a 25 year tax abatement, where you can ride your bike on a summer night
from Gordon Park to Severance for a concert and home again, is a pretty damn attractive
package. How do we compete? Can we compete? Even if we are a region, there will still
be competition within neighborhoods. Everyone wants to live next to the park. No one
wants to live next to the prison even with the "Cream of the crop of prisoners."

Lakewood, needs to keep you here, and attract more Bryan Schweglers. You my friend
are a dream neighbor, and the future of Lakewood, I hope. Dru's plans for Birdtown are
nice, not evil. My only questionable comment is, the bird houses seem like overkill.

Thanks as always holding us to task, and kicking it on a Sunday Morning.

.

[Bill Call]

So let me get this straight...

The city is actually taking some initiative to improve the east Madison area, which has sorely needed some TLC for awhile, and all we can do is complain and share conspiracy theories?

Why can't we just be happy about this?

The plans are wonderful and I appreciate the efforts of all involved. However, the City has already been told theat there will NO money to actaully DO the proect.

There was money found to do this project:

http://www.kammscorners.com/streetscape.html

If you carefully read this article you will see that the writer talked about how the Kamms project encouraged people to move their business from one plance to another:

http://www.cleveland.com/sunpostherald/ ... scape.html

That is the conundrum. We live in a region with a declining population so taxpayer subsidized development in one area drains business from another. Lakewood gets nothing which means we are the City getting drained.

[Bryan Schwegler]

The plans are wonderful and I appreciate the efforts of all involved. However, the City has already been told theat there will NO money to actaully DO the proect.

Except that the money has even been applied for yet, so your statement is a little premature, especially since a plan is not even finalized.

I mean unless you have documented evidence somewhere of the city having applied already for the funds to do a project that hasn't been finalized and the funding was all turned down, I'd love to see it.

[Bryan Schwegler]

Jim, I don't deny there may be people who have plans for one thing or another, but I guess I'm just at a loss how any of this has anything to do with some streetscaping that the city wants to plan for and accomplish on the east end of Madison?

How exactly does adding streetscaping to Madison make us West Cleveland?

Are you suggesting that we just leave Birdtown as it is? Or is there something else you'd suggest we look at for that area to make it "Lakewood" rather than West Cleveland?

Just seems like I'm missing the connection to this small project and the larger conspiracy plans. I mean it would be different if they were talking about bulldozing everything south of Madison and east of Bunts to build tenements so they could move all the poor people from University Circle...then I could see the connection. All they want to do is add planters, some lighting, and street details.

What should be done in Lakewood to improve the visual appearance? This isn't gentrification, it's about improving the neighborhood. Do the people of Birdtown not deserve that? Should we only streetscape in Clifton Park?

[Jim O'Bryan]

Jim, I don't deny there may be people who have plans for one thing or another, but I guess I'm just at a loss how any of this has anything to do with some streetscaping that the city wants to plan for and accomplish on the east end of Madison?

How exactly does adding streetscaping to Madison make us West Cleveland?

Easy answer it does not, it helps keep Lakewood, Lakewood.
It is a good thing, we have a nice plan, we should be moving on it. While looking at others.

Just seems like I'm missing the connection to this small project and the larger conspiracy plans. I mean it would be different if they were talking about bulldozing everything south of Madison and east of Bunts to build tenements so they could move all the poor people from University Circle...then I could see the connection. All they want to do is add planters, some lighting, and street details.

Right,

Gentrification, is more about GUC, which is why we need to secure our housing base,
and make it better.

This is why I am not sure why you saw it as negative.

I would love Birdtown to thrive. I want it sustainable, and why not green.

.

[Bryan Schwegler]

Right,

Gentrification, is more about GUC, which is why we need to secure our housing base,
and make it better.

This is why I am not sure why you saw it as negative.

I would love Birdtown to thrive. I want it sustainable, and why not green.

.

Ah ok, so I must have just been misunderstanding the posts earlier then. Since I'm not up on all the various plans around the county, I just assumed since you were talking about those in parallel with this proposed development that they were somehow connected, and therefore thought you must be saying this was bad.

So that's my fault in misreading.