May

Parkside – Time To Pay Attention

Lots more information on this bad deal here

On June 11th, Stewart Coleman and his business associates will come before City Council to seek permission to build an 11-story condo highrise on land that George W. Pack gave to the “public forever” 108 years ago. After fighting against the City and County-approved Pack Square Conservancy Guidelines for over a year, they’ll claim that the Pack Square Conservancy (PSC) has no authority and that they’re meeting many of the PSC guidelines anyway. They’re going to argue that even though a lawsuit brought against Coleman by George W. Pack’s family is still in the courts, the Council can give four big thumbs up to Condominiums on our public park. They’re going to ask Council to ignore the Planning and Zoning Board’s rejection of this project. They’re going to try to ram it through no matter what anyone thinks.

Meanwhile, County Chair candidate David Gantt is saying that he’d like to see the County reacquire that which was sold by “mistake”. The PSC, which created guidelines for building on the park and which counts among its Board Members local luminaries from all walks, has made it clear that the Parkside project is unacceptable. Who are the wild-eyed hippies on the Board of the PSC? Here’s a partial list:

Terry Bellamy
Mayor of Asheville

George Briggs
North Carolina Arboretum

Jim Efland
CC&J Enterprises

Frank Fishburne
Representing The Asheville Parks and Recreation Department Advisory Board

David Gantt
County Commissioner, representing the Buncombe County Commissioners

James Geter
Eagle Market Streets Development Corp.

Guy Clerici
Attorney at Law

Carol King, Chair
Carol L. King & Associates, PA

Kelly Miller
Asheville Convention & Visitorsâ€™ Bureau

Pamela Myers
Asheville Art Museum, representing The Asheville Downtown Commission

Charles Russell Painter
Russell & Associates, PLLC

Jim Samsel
Samsel Architects, PA

Karen Tessier
Market Connections, Inc.

Herman Turk
Windsor Capital Group

You’re going to hear a lot about Parkside over the next month here at ScruHoo. I’ve had a chance to review the Freedom of Information Act documents from the City and County, and there’s more to this story than we knew before. If a blogger with an FOIA can see systemic problems in the process, I’m sure that a formal investigation could go a long way to improving our local government.

Stewart Coleman needs to sell back the land and free our public park. Hijacking George W. Pack’s gift to the people of Asheville would stain Coleman’s reputation for a generation. Selling the land back is the only honorable thing to do.

The County Commission is being advised by the Asheville/Buncombe Policy Institute to buy back the land and investigate the failures in government that allowed for public land to fall into Coleman’s hands. Without a commitment to finding the truth, the Commission will be doomed to repeat their “mistake”.

Anyone with a scanner want to put all these FOIA docs on the internet? Contact me if you do.

Categories : Local, Parkside

5 Comments

barry
May 13th, 2008 at 1:33 pm

From the Parkside Filess:

First off the top of the stack, a pretty stinky email from Asst. County Attorney Michael Frue to County Manager Wanda Greene. Mr. Frue is apparently the County employee responsible for sheparding the sale of the parkland to developer Stewart Coleman. In this email, he is lamenting the embarrasing situation the County Commissioners were in re:Coleman, and how could they fix it. The solution? Threaten the Pack Square Conservancy’s funding if they don’t show public support for the project. (The “Daniels” referred to below is Rick Daniels, an attorney working at the time for the Pack Square Conservancy (PSC), and the “H&H” refers to the Hayes & Hobson building (more on THAT later)):

Email dated September 20, 2007
Michael Frue to Wanda Greene
(excerpt)

“I think it is common knowledge that the County would like to see Coleman’s project in principal move forward [we sold him the land and had the PSC concept plan in mind when doing so], and, yes, the final decision rests with the City as to the exact location/orientation, height, access, etc. I believe also that everyone is now aware of Coleman’s property exchange request. I recall the gist of the closed session was that our Commissioners did not want to go out on another limb for Coleman [i.e., publicly consenting to his application to City planning, or doing the trade] without some public support of approval for the project from PSC.(…)

“(…) Maybe the way to approach it is to tell Daniels that the County supports Coleman’s project [nice new building, replacing H&H, and tax revenue, etc.] but given the current public sentiment and media focus the ball is in PSC’s court. And, their decision might have a bearing on future funding.”

Catch that last line? Like I said, pretty stinky.

Coming up: The Conservancy refuses to play ball, and guess what? The County goes after their budget! Wow, who could’ve seen THAT coming?

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Doug Gibson
May 13th, 2008 at 8:19 pm

What I like about this is the way that “county” apparently means county staff. Oh, and how the county doesn’t want to take responsibility, so they’re going to withhold money if the PSC doesn’t give them the cover they need. Nice.

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barry
May 14th, 2008 at 4:46 pm

What I like about this is the way Frue assumes that it’s a done deal, and all the City gets to do is tweak the “height, access, etc.”

These people HATE the idea of a park that belongs to the average person; it only has value if someone pays a lot of money for it…

BTW, Coleman is already advertising these condoes for sale (starting at $700,000), as if he already had permission to build.

And, if you’re impatient for the park to be finished, think about what these County staffers are doing – they’re threatening or actually reducing public funding to finish the park, because the Conservancy has refused to be cheerleaders for the Parkside Condominiums. Why isn’t somebody exploring criminal charges here?

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