Letters 11-14-2016

Nov. 11, 2016

Prop 3: New urbanism can help

I’m writing in support of Christie Minervini’s comments in the Nov. 7 issue of Northern Express. Her thoughts were spot-on regarding the goals of new urbanism.

Additionally, Traverse City’s blessed with an awesome planning staff and with hard-working and thoughtful boards and commissions. Whether you agree with them or not, they still deserve respect for their tireless efforts. They have a thankless job of trying to maintain the delicate balance between the needs and desires of all stakeholders. It’s not easy and becomes even harder when minds are closed and mouths operate in overdrive.

After World War II, many cities across our country were devastated by the impacts of sprawl. Bland, disconnected developments stretching as far as the eye can see have torn at the heart of cities at an alarming rate. Autooriented developments sucked the life out of some cities and negatively impacted many more, including Traverse City.

New urbanism is simply a planning tool to counter this threat to the vitality of cities – it emphasizes and builds upon those attributes that help make Traverse City a special place: interconnected tree-lined streets that are also pedestrian and bicycle friendly; varied housing and job opportunities; a healthy mixture of uses which enhance vibrancy and livability; and a plethora of recreational opportunities.

That being said, an affordable housing crisis is challenging Traverse City, and it must be addressed. If our kids and others seeking employment cannot afford to live here, they will move elsewhere or have to commute long distances, neither of which are good for our city.

New urbanism can help address the affordable housing crisis, while making Traverse City a better place to live for all of us, no matter our socioeconomic status or length of residency, and frankly, that’s the way it should be.

– Richard Brown, Traverse City

Prop 3: Boulder a bad example

It was too late to make enough of an impact evidently, but Christie Minervini’s article last week setting the record straight on city planning and new urbanism was well-researched and reasoned. Thanks to her for standing up to the misinformation spread by Grant Parsons on Prop 3. New urbanism is neither new nor intensely urban as practiced in progressive, small communities around the country.

I attended the Congress for New Urbanism in Detroit this year and came home anticipating all that Traverse City could become with forward-looking leadership. The sorts of conversations we’re having here though are the same ones being had across the country. Aging baby boomers are throwing up roadblocks to make it difficult for the burgeoning millennial generation to achieve their desire to work and live in concentrated downtown areas.

I met a gentleman the other day who held up Boulder, Colo., as the perfect example of what we should emulate for growth. What he failed to realize is that Boulder is the poster child of what not to do. No one in the service industry can afford to buy or rent in their "charming" four-story town. Average monthly rents range from $1,200 for 480 square feet (the size of a dorm room) to $1900 for 900 square feet. We must do better than that for the young people trying to make a life in northern Michigan.

Anyone interested in learning more should read the work of Jane Jacobs or Jeff Speck’s "Walkable City," both available at the library. Better yet, learn about building sustainable, equitable living spaces at June’s CNU in Seattle. Challenge yourself to learn more about planning a great community rather than fearing the future.

– Linda Koebert, Traverse City

Prop 3: Beginning of Aspenization

Apparently advocates of Prop 3 support the hospital and Northwestern Michigan College, affordable housing and exciting new development – as long as it’s not in their backyard.

Prop 3 is essentially a no-growth initiative that benefits current downtown property owners. It is also the beginning of the Aspenization of Traverse City.

With development limits, real estate prices will continue to rise in the Central and Boardman neighborhoods. Those who can afford it will continue to flock to Traverse City and pay whatever cost as our amenities and features are desirable yet cheap compared to the Hamptons, New England, and the Colorado ski towns, among other places.

Service workers will have no choice but to commute from outlying areas where real estate is more affordable, and there is increasing traffic and congestion. We have set in motion a process that will force developers to jump through a number of undefined hoops hoping they can convince residents to approve their projects. While at roughly 50 percent this year, imagine voter turnout in a nonpresidential election year, or a special election?

Do we want a minority of 10-15 percent overruling the elected commissioners and planning officials with knowledge and experience by deciding what developments they deem worthy of Traverse City?

– Craig Rosenberg

Microchip U.S. jihadists

Once again, our government shows its amazing and consistent proclivity for keeping homegrown jihadists within our shores. An article in the Nov. 8 Detroit Free Press described the arrest of 20-year-old Ohio native Aaron Daniels for his interest in traveling to Libya to commit jihad.

We will now put him in prison, feed, clothe and shelter him for an inadequate but costly period of time, and then release him. I don’t know about you, but I would feel more comfortable if this wannabe jihadist was roaming about in the Middle East, rather than turning up in a local shopping mall armed to the teeth.

Here is a better and more effective way of dealing with Mr. Daniels: Fly him and any other traitorous expendables, at no charge, to the Middle East. But first, cancel their U.S. citizenship and surgically implant in them an irretrievable microchip that would allow us to thwart any attempt on their part to return to this country.

Meanwhile, ISIS will be stuck with the cost of their upkeep, and their absence from our country would likely provide job openings for pro-American youths.

This appropriate display of an eager willingness to permanently part company with these losers may provide the necessary element of reverse psychology to reduce the number of spoiled malcontents who would choose the jihadist option to act out their inexplicable anger.

– Bob Ross, Pellston

Trump is right about media

Most people blindly go to the mainstream media for their version of the truth. The mainstream media is biased and corrupt just as Donald Trump has been saying for months. Every editor of nearly every mainstream media source are the first people that need to be thrown in prison for treason, followed by Hillary Clinton.

That includes local, state and federal media. The federals always lead and then the state and locals follow as the good little rats that they are who follow the pied piper right off of the cliff to be drowned in the sea. Just like they did in this presidential election.

Yes, we have corrupt officials at every level of government, but it’s the media that puts and keeps them there. It’s time to clean house, and hopefully Trump will start taking out the dirty laundry.

– Gordon Lee Dean, Benzonia