Wednesday, December 29, 2004
Salem council sold out future when it sold off part of Elizabeth Campus
From the RoundTable blog
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Munley lives in Salem.
"Greenbacks or green space?" a Nov. 10 Roanoke Times headline about Salem City Council's sale of 5.5 acres of the Elizabeth Campus to an Atlanta realty firm, would be better framed as a choice between short-term profit and long-term sustainability.
Council opted for the short-term in selling to a realty company that will offer an eight-year lease of a warehouse-style building to a transplanted Roanoke County insurance company. The company already employs Roanoke Valley residents, and relatively few additional jobs will be offered. Neither the paltry "greenbacks" nor the tiny number of net jobs for Salemites will be commensurate with the property's potential.
Council's callous action dashes hopes of stalwart Salem residents who have struggled for years to preserve this unique, historic and centrally located acreage as a treasure that could provide sorely needed open space and attract tourist dollars. Vision and creativity are needed - both in short supply at city hall.
Since 1998, the city's actions on the property have been duplicitous. After sponsoring a resident input workshop where 80 percent voted for "green use," the city immediately sold 5.8 acres. Subsequent public hearings overwhelmingly favored preservation, but a resident-commissioned scientific poll demonstrating that 60 percent favored green development was ridiculed by council.
After residents walked out of council's 5-0 vote favoring rezoning, council unexpectedly crowned the campus with "Tarpley's tower." City Manager Forest Jones met periodically with me and other preservationists and stated that he had no plans for the Elizabeth Campus property "in his lifetime."
Council members can find other locations for business if they work to revitalize sorely neglected, unoccupied, overlooked or junked-up properties, which abound in Salem. The 28 contiguous undeveloped acres of Elizabeth Campus, most valuable intact, cannot be replicated. Council persists in implementing its outdated land-use decision to fill the campus piecemeal while steadfastly refusing residents' calls for a genuine overall master plan.
Any simpleton could sell prime public land below residential prices. That's what council is doing. Real leaders would entice business to revitalize our city.
Having already used the campus for the YMCA and inappropriately for the world's largest water tower, why can't the city dedicate the remaining property to public use for current and future Salem residents? Did council forget it had originally promised a 16-acre park on this property?
Council's refusal to consult adequately with the public has resulted in poor planning decisions, such as allowing the Texaco station next to Lake Spring Park and ugly infill in the heart of our historic district. Council also rejected meaningful resident involvement in crafting the 2003 Comprehensive Plan, which is basically a rehash of the old plan - not one for the 21st century.
Jane Johnson, former planning commission member and new councilwoman, even stooped to denouncing residents (whose input had been solicited by the city) for "spreading propaganda and lies."
There are numerous other reminders that the city should partner with residents instead of treating them as a threat and falling over itself to offer prospective business everything it wants. This is especially true of the Elizabeth Campus, which could be used for a historical park or botanical garden to attract tourist dollars from the millions of travelers on Interstate 81.
Salem's unimaginative governance hurts us all. We must daily encounter eyesores such as junkyards and stagnant industrial sites around town. Councilman John Givens ran on a "beautify West Main" platform in 2002. Is its new twin strip mall the fruit of his "beautification" effort? Piece by piece, Salem's character is snuffed out.
During the 2003 Comprehensive Plan hearings, Citizen Review Commission member Bob Hunt and his subcommittee tried to insert a clause calling for the campus' commercial use as a "last resort." But it was struck from the document by the chairman, Councilman Alex Brown. Brown ran the commission like Robespierre ran the French Revolution, denouncing concerned residents as "communists" and saying that the Burger King should be "blown up."
This latter statement is a testament to council's habit of making mistakes despite residents' warnings, then regretting the result. Council steadfastly follows a bad idea to the end, including following deposed Councilman Alex Brown's original "plan" for the Elizabeth Campus: "Chop it up and sell it off."
For this piecemeal, backward governance, residents pay our council members the maximum allowed under Virginia law: $1,000 a month.
If council cared about Salem's future, it would join with residents to craft a master plan for the campus. Its so-called "mixed use" plan will result in a mixed mess similar to the kind of "beautification" council applies to West Main. Salem should not be the dominion of provincial council members bent on implementing their dead-end approaches to filling city-owned spaces willy-nilly without proper planning.
This council will not remain forever. Unfortunately, its laissez-faire, piecemeal approach to planning will leave a legacy of development and land use scars. A business park on the Elizabeth Campus is the ultimate mistake.
Ironically, "historical" little Salem is a place where residents struggle fiercely to preserve what city leaders hasten to erase - the city's history and its birth land, which holds the kernel of a lasting economic plan for Salem's future.
