Bearden letter

A shortended version of this letter, from the Bearden Council, will appear in the paper this weekend. This was emailed late Friday by Teresa Faulkner, head of the Bearden Council:

Beginning in 1989 Bearden community leaders began working to clean up and beautify the Bearden commercial area on Kingston Pike. Walking from our neighborhoods to the commercial areas to do this work caused us to realize that the proximity of residential areas to commercial areas presented us with a unique opportunity to help create an attractive, sustainable, urban environment in Bearden. Neighborhood leaders realized that Bearden, with proper infrastructure added, had the potential to become a community in which residents could live, work, buy groceries, exercise, access schools and public transit to anywhere in the city, enjoy an excellent quality of life and NEVER have to use a car (an excellent retirement community!). So we began our work to create a healthier, sustainable, pedestrian/public transit friendly, pleasant urban environment which would enrich the quality of life for all who live here.

 

Project beginnings: In 1999 neighborhood leaders requested that our local planning organization, the Metropolitan Planning Commission, work with Bearden residents and business owners to help design a Bearden “Village” small area plan. We participated in planning meetings for over a year with MPC staff to complete the pedestrian/public transit friendly plan which was approved by MPC Commissioners and City Council in 2001.

 

Since 1989 community leaders had worked with local businesses and developers to landscape and beautify the Bearden area

in a non-official way. In 2001 the Bearden Council was formed with “official” representatives from neighborhoods and

businesses in the Bearden area to help implement the “Bearden Village” plan in an organized manner. In these past 23

years these two groups have worked with over 75 local businesses, 12 commercial developers

(including Holrob, Dominion, M&M, Blue Ridge, Nick Cazana, Jim Harrison, TJ Development, and Murphy Development),

almost every department head in the city since 1989 and with three different Mayors. We have also worked with area schools,

Knox Heritage, East Tennessee Community Design Center, Knoxville Tree Board, Keep Knoxville Beautiful, Knox Greenway

Coalition, KAT, TDOT and various UT officials to accomplish the projects listed below.

 

1) Acquisition in the early 2000’s of ca. two million dollars of federal, state (Congestion, Mitigation and Air Quality [CMAQ] funding) with matches from local government. This funding combined with contributions solicited from local developers and businesses have resulted in 5+ miles of completed greenways and sidewalks in the area. East/west greenways now connect to West Knoxville, to the UT campus and downtown; and north/south sidewalks provide safe access for residents to the commercial areas and transit stops on Sutherland and Kingston Pike.

 

2) Sutherland Avenue “Main Street” efforts: $250,000 dollars were allocated in the 2012 city budget for sidewalk construction between Hollywood and Jade Streets to safely access local residents and UT intramural athletes to multiple businesses and restaurants located there. Additional crosswalks have been funded by UT on Sutherland and both projects will be completed in the fall of 2013. UT has contributed to community efforts to create an attractive “main street” in that area by adding decorative fencing, a public plaza, a greenway connection with adjoining public parking, ca. 100 trees and landscaping along the Bearden Village and Third Creek Greenways which are located next to the newly completed intramural fields.

 

3) Adding trees to beautify, provide shade and help clean the air: Almost 1000 trees have been added in the area along greenways, at schools and along major arteries. These have been funded by the city, grants from the state (Tennessee Agricultural Enhancement grants), TDOT, KUB, UT, Knoxville Junior League, Rotary Club, ocal developers and businesses.

 

4) Sheltered KAT transit stops: Six public transit stops have been added along Sutherland Avenue and Kingston Pike with shelters. TDOT grants and City Council discretionary funds have provided attractive landscaping around several of these. Local landscape architects donated their time to create the designs. An additional sheltered stop will be added this year on Kingston Pike near Earthfare.

 

5) Business/developer contributions: In addition to building sidewalks to access pedestrians into their business/development, they have added smaller signage, many of which are monument signs. Landscaping was often co-ordinated with a larger street plan, additional trees and benches were added benches were added to some sites.

 

6)  Nineteen historic markers documenting local and planetary history have been added to greenways and sidewalks. These have been funded with Knox Greenway Coalition and City Council grants.

 

Because of these and other accomplishments in this area, the Bearden Village won the first Environmental Achievement award ever presented by the Metropolitan Planning Commission in 2009. Bearden Council members feel it is critical to continue the important work of helping to create a pleasant, environmentally sustainable urban area in Knoxville.

 

Bearden Council Unanimously supports the Ben Atchley Road Closure:

Not only have businesses and developers, et.al. supported us in many different ways during these years, but we have

also supported many of them in rezonings, variances and road closure requests, etc. when we

felt these changes were compatible with thegoals presented in the Bearden Village plan. In addition to considering the

explicit suggestions and plans put forth in that document when making our decisions, our members also carefully

consider the well-being of our entire community, not only in the short term impact of the changes requested, but the

possible long term negative or positive effects of those changes as well. It is our opinion that Mr. Cappiello’s plans for this

site preserves and puts to good use three of our earlier buildings which are sited in an awkward triangular property, unites

them with an additional building into one large attractive area creating an inviting pedestrian friendly, quality development for

the west end of the entire Homberg area which includes the Orangery (an early Bearden farmers co-op,

Naples (which is located in an early tourist “biscuits and ham” diner) and the Southern Market. The lengthy

sidewalk Mr.Cappiello has committed to adding on the north side of Homberg Street at the rear of his development, will be a

huge blessing for shoppers who park at there to shop but who also want have lunch or shop at other stores in

that ”terminus” western area of Homberg. The addition of sidewalks will also be of benefit to the entire Homberg area

which has no sidewalks as it will set a precedent for future developers and encourage existing businesses there to consider

funding additional linking walkways. This area is one of the most pleasant (with a great view of the open green spaces of the

Cherokee Country Club), historically interesting and appealing areas in Bearden and could become one of our hidden ”jewels”.

It has space for medium density housing, a retirement home, up-scale apartments or condominiums and Bearden has all the amenities for lots of additional residents to enjoy on foot and we believe that Mr. Cappiello’s development will be a first big step to future quality development in the historic Homberg area, an exciting addition to the Bearden Village and a destination point for Knoxville residents living in other areas, as our Earthfare has become!  For these reasons the Bearden

Council is supporting Tony Cappiello in his request for the closure of Ben Atchley Street.

 

Gotta beef up the bike lanes, Knoxville, if you want to make this list

This website, walk score, which rates the walkability of cities and so on, released its bike score recently and Knoxville isn’t on the list.

Who is?

Memphis, Chattanooga and Nashville - in that order, pretty close to the bottom. Chatt and Nashville, in fact, are third and second from last, respectively. Birmingham brings up the rear.

Knoxville is nowhere to be found.

I didn’t look hard at the criteria used, but the list seems somewhat legit. The city’s walk score is 40 out of 100. We’re listed as car dependent. That last link takes you to a nifty map that breaks the city down by neighborhood. Downtown Knoxville, no surprise, has excellent walkability. (The web site is a home and apartment finder with this nifty, somewhat helpful feature of heat maps showing the abundance of walking and biking accessibility in cities.)

Speaking of walking, on two (short, slow) runs this week – one downtown, another in North Knox – neither were totally on sidewalks. I mean, we all know that Jackson Avenue downtown is in need of a little sidewalk love, and we’ve heard and reported on the demand for sidewalks across this city. Even this past week, Mayor Madeline Rogero said she’d put $10 million toward sidewalks if she could. She’s not going that far, but $1.8 million for sidewalks is included in her FY 2013-14 budget proposal.

Point is, infrastructure costs money. But demand brings action, etc. So if you want more sidewalks and bike lanes, then do something about it.

Even so, I’d argue that some sidewalks are better than no sidewalks. And having lived in places without abundant, or any, sidewalks - dodging dump trucks on a 10 speed, or running over the off-camber side of the road facing traffic – I’ll take what I can get.

That said, I’m going to attempt to ride only my bike to get around town this weekend. We’ll see how it goes. I might walk some too.

Where Am I? Vol. XVI

Took a week off, just to get ready for all the eating this past week. Who out there hit biscuitfest?

But you know, there’s always room for dessert. Or a little treat for a pick-me-up.

As usual, post guesses in comments. Name where I was when I took this photo. Extra points if you can name the flavor. As ususal, post guesses in comments:

Congrats to Jennifer, Erin and Don, who named the correct place in the previous week’s Where Am I? – The Public House. Props to Chrissy for getting a few of the bottles correct, if not the location.

On Bearden – some extras

There were a few comments and quotes that I didn’t get into today’s story on Bearden, along with a few points of history.

When we’re talking about neighbors of Southern Market who aren’t happy with the idea of Atchley closing,n Susan Worthington said she’s talked with nearby law offices and folks over at Jerry’s Artarama who oppose the road closing.

Mostly, she and others feel that it’s somewhat arbitrary to close the road, she said.

With regard to the recent history, The District so labeled itself in 2010 in a unified effort to market the area, and recently came out with some iPhone and iPad apps to assist with getting the word out. But while that’s 30-some-odd businesses in the area, the consortium does not include plenty of others, like Barre3 or Bearden Beer Market.

I talked with Chris Morton, who opened BBM back in 2010. One could say that he’s one of the area’s newer businesses – a place where plenty of independent shops such as his propagate. He’s good here in the sense that he doesn’t have much of a dog in the fight – not being in The District group, and not being all that close to Atchley:

On the long-existing businesses in Bearden: Basically, that was the reason I wanted to be there. With the long-standing tenants and the old guard and how well-respected they are … It’s Knoxville’s Sequoyah Hills flair and a bunch of really nice people doing things the right way, and sticking with each other.

Anthropologie’s opening and its spillover effects: The 25,000 college students that will bring, they’ll be shopping at Anthropologie. That redevelopment is going to bring more Buckhead-level mom-and-pop (businesses). I don’t think that, I’m hoping there won’t, be national chain-type stuff.

Walking in the area, outsiders coming in town to shop and growth of the area: I think that happens organically, we’ve got to have good councilmen and women in place. I guess they’ll focus on the movement of people first and to have walkability. I think that’s really close, I don’t think that’s very long-range at all. … I’m impressed that this is all going down and I hope that people from Nashville and Memphis, when they come to Tennesee football games, they come over and put a few extra hundred in their pockets and come spend some money in Knoxville.

Millions of public dollars … and tumbleweed

You wouldn’t know that the pedestrian bridge would cost you about $20 million to build from UT to South Knoxville.

Or that, particularly, there could be some last-minute changes to the proposed bonds that the city could issue for a public works building, the zoo, lakeshore park and the often-underwater Prosser Road.

Because the only people who attended the city’s budget hearings – which sets and explains the annual budget of more than $180 million of your money, Knoxville – were the city employees and elected officials making the decisions on your behalf.

That’s a lot of trust.

Even the public hearing, held conveniently at 5 p.m. so that people could get there after work if they wanted, had nobody signed up to speak. And things got pretty interesting by then. The entire story for today’s KNS was hung on what happened instead of the daylong hearing – a discussion on the debt that could be issued and the increasing pension costs.

Guess what? Those are the things most likely to affect (raise) your property taxes in coming years. Put in simpler terms: the decisions that city council, and your mayor make today will affect how much your pay in taxes tomorrow. Seen yet another way – enjoy your flat taxes this year, they could be rising in years to come.

Here’s that discussion cast through the lens of Dan Andrews, a pro over at The Knoxville Focus:

… that’s the main assembly room of the City County Building, which I’m identifying for those of you who never step foot in there.

Meanwhile, things were somewhat routine for the day. The City Council doesn’t get the power of line-item veto in the budget recommendation from Mayor Madeline Rogero, who presented a budget that didn’t have a whole lot of crazy new spending for 2013-14. And not tax increase.

Outside of the proposed bonds, of course.

Here’s Nick Della Volpe doing a little Tai Chi to pass time, for those of you who missed it.

Bocce

The other week I was talking to Councilman Nick Della Volpe on the finer points of Icantrememberwhat, when he told me that he had to go, that he was in line at the library.

He called back within moments, saying that he was there to brush up on bocce rules. Bocce. According to United States Bocce Federation, “Beginning with Emperor Augustus, Bocce became the sport of statesman and rulers.”

I didn’t think much of it at the time, but then I see Donila’s blog about this release – from Knox County:

Knox County Mayor Tim Burchett will participate in an inaugural game of bocce ball at the first framed, public bocce ball court in Knox County. The court is officially opening just in time for the long Memorial Day weekend.

The game will take place at 10:30 a.m. on Friday, May 24 at Strickland Park located at 4618 Asheville Hwy. Mayor Burchett will be joined by Knoxville City Councilman Nick Della Volpe, CEMEX representatives who have adopted the park and members of the community. Other elected officials may be in attendance.

The recently-framed bocce ball court at Strickland Park is the first of its kind in Knox County. The court and bocce sets, which can be checked out next door at the Burlington Library, are free and open to the public.

The sport of statesmen and rulers, indeed. Mayors and councilmen too. Remember that when you’re hanging with your family this summer at the beach, hurling big shperes at little white balls.

Chick-fil-A sign opposition fires up again

This time, in Fountain City, where Scenic Knoxville is working to keep the fried chicken fast food place from posting a tall sign. (h/t KnoxViews) This has shades of last year’s work by neighbors in Bearden, who pushed (successfully) to bring the sign height down there from its proposed many-feet-high to its current “monument” style of sign.

Speaking of signs, while it’s not quite as contentious as the billboard fight has been in the county, the city’s sign task force has been reviewing its policy regarding sign height, size and so on for more than a year now (the city has a billboard moratorium on, btw). Compromise on the city end of things regarding signs has been occurring with public discussions involving Councilmen Duane Grieve and George Wallace, as well as others from Scenic Knoxville and area businesses.

A public hearing was held in April regarding the proposed sign ordinance, and next the task force will digest those comments and attempt to put them in the proposed ordinance:

All meetings are at 4:00 p.m. at KCDC, 901 N. Broadway

May 22, 2013 – STF meeting to discuss public hearing comments and give new ordinance to MPC. The task force will continue to accept written comment until noon, May 22.

If you really want to get into the weeds on this, visit the link below to see the notes from the March meeting – where details of the proposed policy were discussed in copied emails, along with a survey of the city’s sign stock and the proposed heights from individual members on the task force. Interesting, if wonky.