Recent Comments
Re: “Owners of Craft Company No. 6 speak out against University Ave. project”
This is a journalism ethics two-fer.
First, City is so interested in carrying water for GEH that they publish this form letter as original content from the Craft Co.
Second, unlike other letters to the editor in City, they put this opinion piece in the news section.
Coupled with the non-disclosure of contributions to GEH, as well as the non-disclosure that the Towlers own rental property in the neighborhood, one wonders if there are any ethical standards at City, other than whatever the Towlers feel is right, is right.
Re: “City should turn down University Ave. project”
@Mrs Towler: I'll leave that between you and your conscience. All I can tell from the piece is that you're carrying GEH's water on this one, because, as others pointed out, your arguments are nonsensical. Example:
"At what point does the density become too much? Has this part of the city's southeast area reached its apartment saturation point? Is it time to cap the expansion of apartments in that neighborhood, letting them spread to other areas?"
Apartment saturation point? What does that mean? Do you have any statistics to quantify this elusive tipping point? Or, am I mistaken and the name of your newspaper is "Suburb"? Because it's suburbs that want single occupancy stand alone dwellings, And what neighborhood are we talking about, the whole SE side or NOTA? Because the only NOTA apartment expansion that I've seen is near Village Gate (unless you're counting the low-income high-rise between Goodman and Upton Place). There's no apartment expansion going on near this proposed development. That's what makes it a good location for an apartment complex, even if its neighbors like GEH and the churches don't like it.
Re: “City should turn down University Ave. project”
@ParkResident: "the neighborhood surrounding Starry Nites, while up and coming, is still pretty dicey (wouldn't want my daughter walking around there at night)"
You're throwing out accusations about people not knowing this location and then you write something like this? I've been in that neighborhood at night a number of times recently and would hardly call it "dicey". Are you talking about the existence of a gay bar? Does that alone make it dicey? Perhaps you should ask the patrons of Edibles, Good Luck, Lento, Espada, Salenas and Gatehouse, just to name 6 good restaurants within easy walking distance of this new complex, whether they feel that they're in a "dicey" neighborhood. And, btw, none of those restaurants involve a walk across the sacred grass of GEH.
NIMBYism is simply another word for resistance to any change by current residents, and an inability to imagine improvement over the current status quo. Your comments exemplify that. It's an "industrial area"? Yes, there's some industry there, obviously Gleason, but there's also a huge converted-to-retail set of warehouses one block east (where Rockventures is), and a number of other former industrial buildings that are now housing high-end retail (like Joe Bean) near Price Right. Who knows what other businesses will grow there after 102 new units of housing are added?
And as to the question of where the people to populate all the new city housing will come from, young professionals and retired empty nesters will move to the city from the suburbs no matter what the schools are like. This may be a zero-sum game, but the game is played across Monroe County, not just in the city, once the city has dense enough housing that spurs the development of more retail. Look at the South Wedge as an example - I'm sure it's far too "dicey" for you to enter, but dense housing and new apartments have led to more retail which leads to higher rent and higher housing prices, not collapse.
Re: “City should turn down University Ave. project”
It's nice to see City supporting a major advertiser, George Eastman House, even though GEH completely and totally screwed up what should have been a no-brainer acquisition of the Voiture. We wouldn't be having this conversation if GEH had dealt with those vets in a straightforward manner. And, once GEH bought the property, and once they figured out what they wanted to do with it after they used it for a parking lot for a few years (and Lord knows the one thing Rochester doesn't need is nicely landscaped parking lot), then City will be explaining why whatever GEH wants to do is worth tearing down the historic Voiture building. After reading this ill-reasoned piece, City has no credibility on this subject.
All the things that make Rochester a better city- better mass transit, more small neighborhood businesses, more use of bikes and walking instead of driving-require population density. The way you get population density is to developments like this.
Also, that Kahn quote is just NIMBY dressed up in elegant words.
Re: “Skepticism greets big East promises”
"Anything would be an improvement" is the attitude that gets a bunch of grifting consultants selling a fairy tale that even Disney wouldn't make hired.