Our latest interview with Ted Baker, focused on the lakefront/ downtown planning process and our two posts critiquing the way in which State Senator Mike Nozzolio’s $5 million earmark for a visitors center influenced the planning that was supposed to be community-driven.
Part of the problem is that this proposed visitors’ center is projected to lose $100,000 per year. So, by putting the need to meet Nozzolio’s initial mandate together with the need to overcome the annual deficit, residential reappears (after being soundly ruled out by the public) with the idea that property tax money from condos would go into one end of the City’s budget and come out the other as a visitors’ center subsidy.
During the interview, Augustine said she thinks residential, or some multi-use structure of some kind, may have some merit, independent of the visitor’s center. In other words, maybe the idea has a justification that isn’t driven by a need to meet an earmark mandate, but rather from a true community-benefit perspective. At the very least, she indicated that it would be worth discussing.
By contrast, Capraro believes that the community has spoken definitively in opposition to condos on the lakefront and this type of development would never make its way back onto the table through democratic means. The main reason for that opposition is that condos on the lakefront would create a de facto gated community of privileged residents who would ultimately seek barriers to divert the public away from their property. He indicated that condos would create a suburb between downtown and the lake, ultimately hurting downtown. Stay tuned to this blog for more discussion of this.
“Who makes the decisions here?” asked Ted Baker. It’s the City Council with input from consultants, politicians, advocacy groups, and ordinary citizens. So, take a listen to today’s radio session and stay involved!
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