Saturday, May 7, 2011

A conversation about Edison to participate in..

Did everyone see the Creamery on Portage St on your way to the garden on Thursday? How does everyone feel about using NSP money to tear it down?

The Gazette is trying to spark a conversation about the Edison neighborhood... check it out ...you might even think about adding something, being that we can all tweet now...


I rode down to the first day of the farmers market this morning and took a look at the housing development they're putting up across from it that Mary had been described in class. My initial reaction is doubtful... the new houses are very dominion-homes-style... (and thats not to criticize dominion homes homeowners!) .. its just that they don't have the same character as the rest of the neighborhood. But maybe that's the point--to give Edison a new personality?

What do you think? Did you see something charming about the street we were planting on?

Maybe more poignant: if you could put the NSP dollars towards anything in Edison, specifically... what would you do?

8 comments:

  1. It is unfortunate that the Land Bank's new development is not keeping up with the rest of neighborhood. I don't think that suburban style buildings would give Edison a good new personality; an area is based in its history. Similarly, the Creamery does have somewhat of a charm. I'm biased, but I grew up in a neighborhood where the houses look like the houses of the Edison neighborhood and were all built 1900s-1920s.

    It is difficult to make a decision where the NSP dollars should go. Renovating old buildings instead of tearing them down will not hurt the character of the region.

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  2. I thought there was definitely something charming about the Edison neighborhood and I think it would be a shame to see it loose the personality it already has. I didn't notice the creamery on the way there, but I guess I would want to know what NSP is going to put in its place. If they're planning on building a new home or business in its place right away, then maybe it's a good thing; if it's just going to be a vacant lot waiting for a new entrepreneur to build something there, it might add an eyesore to the community.

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  3. I also didn't actually see the Creamery, but by my reading of that article it sounds like there is no plan to build on the site, the idea is to make it cheaper for a developer to come in and do something with the site. But as a commenter at the Gazzette pointed out, there are already vacants in that corridor, this demolition doesn't provide anything that isn't already available at no public expense.

    The demo might still make sense just in terms or not maintaining the property, not wanting vacant buildings in the area or whatever, but expecting the site to be redeveloped seems naive. The underlying issue is there isn't enough demand to maintain the current building stock, so no one is going to build new projects either.

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  4. I thought the Edison neighborhood was well maintained with most of the houses being in good condition as well as good roads and landscaping throughout the neighborhood. I think that it was a good decision by the treasury as these were bringing down the house values for the nice homes around them.

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  5. My guess is that the style of homes that currently exist in the Edison neighborhood would cost way too much to recreate. it may be a matter of quantity over style. I would bet that was one of the harder choices that the land bank had to make.

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  6. I really liked that divide in the middle of the road by the garden. I imagine once the trees grow larger and the grass gets better that divide will provide a very unique atmosphere for the neighborhood. I would like to see flowers and other types of landscape projects performed to increase eye appeal.

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  7. I agree with you Chris in that eye appeal is important and more landscaping money would be greatly appreciated. Richard I think you are spot on, to recreate some of those homes that were built in the 1920's or earlier would be WAY to costly, and it would be inefficient to spend the NSP money on that. I think for me it would be most beneficial to spend money on beautifying the street by landscaping as well as building more modern cost efficient homes.

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  8. I think our work will definitely go a long way towards beautifying the Edison neighborhood. One of the things my group noticed when doing the Tour de K was that many of the homes in our neighborhod (Douglas/North St. area) had little no no landscaping, grass, trees, etc. Landscaping and gardening just help people take pride in their homes and makes the neighborhood look like its residents care.

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