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Many were disturbed at learning of the City's plan for a 'condemnation' redevelopment area. |
CORRECTED: The correct actor/professor is Matt McConaughey. The City of Plainfield is sponsoring a community meeting on redevelopment on Tuesday evening (October 1) at the Plainfield High School cafeteria. The meeting is set to run from 6:00 to 8:00 PM.
Economic Development Director Valerie Jackson and Planning Director Bill Nierstedt will explain what redevelopment is (and how it differs from development), current and proposed projects, and the various tools available to the City in pursuing redevelopment.
The meeting is in response to the unexpected large turnout at the last Planning Board meeting, where many who came out had the impression that the Planning Board was going to vote on a redevelopment plan for 120 properties the City has identified in what is called the TODD South area -- roughly from East 4th Street to East 7th Street between Park and Watchung Avenues. That meeting was shut down at the suggestion of fire department officials because of the size of the crowd (though not until after one applicant had been heard).
The area contains a number of vacant and under-used buildings. Some are on the National Register of Historic Buildings (the YMCA); some are freighted with significant historical associations to the City (the original Police Station at 4th and Cleveland); and some are buildings that would be adaptable to current needs (the former Earl & Al's Restaurant Supply is in a building with -- as an owner told me -- about 150 parking spaces on the upper floors. (Malcolm Dunn's building on Park Avenue, though not in this area, also has indoor parking.)
In addition, there are buildings in which a significant investment has been made to upgrade them for new uses (the former auto dealership at 5th and Cleveland, which now houses Social Services).
There are of course dilapidated buildings that everyone would like to see something done with, but business and property owners and residents of the area clearly were alarmed at what they feared was happening.
THE CONVERSATION WE'VE NEVER HAD
On Saturday afternoon, I happened to listen to an NPR quiz show on the car radio. They were making gentle fun of the the actor-turned-professor Matt McConaughey's recent appointment as the 'cultural ambassador' of the University of Texas at Austin, the flagship campus.
Austin is undergoing explosive growth and economic development. In response to the ribbing, he offered an explanation of why he was given the (I think) non-salaried position.
McClanahan said the University and the City asked themselves this question: How do we embrace and keep the core everything we love about this city (Austin) and at the same time embrace progress?
I nearly drove off the roadway. Of course! THIS is the conversation Plainfield needs to have but has never had.
We have been involved in the many efforts at strategic planning and visioning ever since the late Mayor Al McWilliams pushed Plainfield's first strategic planning process back in the late 1990s.
We also have had various charettes focusing on selected areas of the city, and finally the Vision 2025 exercise which, under the leadership of Mayor Mapp's former chief of staff, mobilized hundreds of people to consider what would make Plainfield a better place to live, work and shop in by 2025.
But there is one glaring thing we have never done.
We have never had a conversation about what are those things about Plainfield that we love as they are and do not wish to see changed?
It would be easy to get so caught up in the rush of projects coming at us, that we neglected to say 'this we love, this helps us define ourselves as a city, this stays as is'.
That is the conversation that we need to start having now, before the wrecking ball obliterates stuff the community considers essential in the name of economic development.
Hopefully, Tuesday evening's discussion can open the way to a Plainfield conversation about what we all agree we love about this city and don't want to see changed.
The Plainfield High School cafeteria is on the Kenyon Avenue side of the school between West 9th Street and Stelle Avenue. Parking available in the Kenyon and Stelle Avenue lots.
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