Toellner Tells it

Two more historic apartment buildings being demolished at Taxpayer Expense

Two more old buildings in an historic neighborhood in Kansas City are coming down -- and KC Tax Payers are paying for it.

In the Union Hill neighborhood, there are two old homes (that are, honestly, in horrific shape) that are coming down, along with several apartment buildings. A couple of the apartment buildings are 1950s-ish style apartments whose style is not a fit for the neighborhood and probably never should have been built there in the first place.

However, the two pictured here, are original to the neighborhood and actually don't appear to be in terrible shape. But they're coming down -- to be replaced by single-family homes (which I'm told will be designed to match the neighborhood, but we'll see).

These two buildings have been run down for awhile and been a haven for a host of nefarious activities. However, it seems like such a shame to use tax money to a) destroy historic buildings and b) to remove density from our downtown area (and Union Hill is officially in the "downtown" via the Downtown Council's definition).

 

Another historic building potentially lost

On Friday, the Star reported that it seemed likely that the Hotel Cosby at 9th and Baltimore would be likely be torn down -- potentially as quickly as this weekend.

According to the city, there are concerns over bricks falling off the building that may endanger pedestrians. Instead of looking at possible solutions to secure the building, the city is looking at paying $115,000 to tear it down.

The Hotel Cosby was built in 1881 and sits almost in the center of our city's downtown. It sits jus a block from the newly renovated public library, from hundreds of loft units and offices and within a short walk of the Power & Light entertainment district and the River Market.  In this case, the city has already provided Tax Increment Financing to SAVE the building.

And yet, somehow this building has set empty for the past 15 years and is now set to be torn down.

If you care about Kansas City keeping its historic buildings at all, then call your city council person and the mayor TODAY to be sure they know how you feel about the city's decision.

Then, let's ask ourselves (or, the city), how our incentive structure works to cause this to happen.

The story of this building is the same story that has plagued this city for far too long.

Owner owns building and leaves it to sit unoccupied for decades.

Building is near colapse. Is called blighted. The city provides TIF incentives for them to repair the blight that they helped create by allowing the building to sit empty for decades. 

And throughout the metro, dozens of building sit empty, abandoned by owners waiting for the city to give them tax breaks to clean up the mess they've created. The city's codes department does little to anything to mandate the building's upkeep. And it falls in disrepair.

And if it can happen in the heart of our revitalized downtown, think about how often it happens in less desireable areas along Troost, on the East side, and in the Northeast Neighborhoods.

It's a complete failure by the city, on all fronts to allow a builidng to just crumble before its eyes.

Here's an idea. Tax abandoned buildings differently than those that are occupied. All buildings in the city require a certain amount of public infastructure to support. But abandoned buildings don't generate the same type of tax revenue that inhabited ones do. Inhabited buildings have residents who buy taxable items and earn taxable salaries. Commercial spaces generate sales tax revenue, or have workers in them who buy lunches out, or generate income tax revenue.

Abandoned buildings cost the city money. So let's tax them that way. If a building is sitting empty, it should get taxed at a higher rate than one that is at full occupancy. This will encourage people to to fill up empty store fronts or apartments by lowering rents. It will help incent people to DO SOMETHING with their buildings vs incenting them to do nothing and allowing the building to fall in dis-repair.

It is my understanding that Iowa City, IA has such a policy (I can't find how the bylaw is written and thus can't verify this, but it's where I got the idea) and there are almost no empty store-fronts or apartments in Iowa City -- because people are not incentivized to just sit on empty, rotting buildings.

Here, we incent the wrong things. We don't enforce basic bylaws. And yet another piece of our city's history remains destined to be another surface parking lot in the middle of our downtown. Tragic.

More on the Hotel Cosby at BlogKC and Hyperglobal.

People driving less

  Last week, the New York Times ran a really interesting chart that compared gas prices with the number of miles driven over time.

In 1956, the average person drover less than 4,000 miles per year and gas was abut $2.40 a gallon.

In 2005, with gas at $2.50 a gallon, the average person was driving more than 10,000 miles per year.

However, since 2005, as gas prices have remained over $2.50 a gallon, the number of miles driven has steadily declined. The number of miles driven right now is at its lowest point since 1998.

There has never been such a pro-longed cut in the number of miles driven, and the only times even short cuts in driving have occurred has have all coincided with sharp increases in gas prices.

So why bother posting this?

Well, for starters, I think it's interesting, but I also think there is something else more interesting happening here.

People are starting to drive less. Yes, gas prices are driving this to some degree -- but note how growth in driving decreased from 1998-2003, even though the economy was good for a large part of that time and gas prices were relatively low. People are moving back to cities. After an entire generation of people moving out to the suburbs, people are starting to enjoy urban living, living close to work, restaurants and cultural activities. And with high gas prices, this is sure to continue.

So what's this mean? After years of spending countless resources on roads, we need to start changing spending priorities, including bike lanes for bikers (which is more doable when people live close to work), more pedestrian friendly sidewalks and neighborhoods and better public transit. Knowing how things are changing and how people are living differently is important in determining spending priorities.

What one group is doing about pot holes

A Toronto area group went around the city and spray painted the words "thunk" and "oof" around area pot holes. The project is beng caled Pothole Onomatopoeia and has the goal educating the city on the dangers pot holes like this make for urban cyclists.

I'm not implying that the cycling community in Kansas City should do something like this (I'm pretty sure it's technically illegal) -- but if they did, they would need a lot of spray paint.

Hat Tip: Good

KCMO Schools Close in part due to poor road conditions

After taking the month of December off from this blog, I'm back. Thanks for hanging in there with me.

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I was willing to forgive the city and roads crews during the Christmas holiday snow for the road conditions following the big Christmas Eve snowfall that was very heavy, and due to high winds, kept blowing snow back on the roads.

However, it has been 10 days since the last heavy snow fall, with only small snowfalls over the past week or so. And yet, many roads in Kansas City remain unplowed, untreated, and nearly impossible to navigate. And because of this,the Kansas City, MO school district cancelled classes as did many of our charter schools.

When our city's budget management does not allow us the resources to even plow streets enough for our kids to even get to schools, there is a serious problem with even basic services for the city. Let's figure it out.

Telling Signs

I caught this sign over the weekend down at 3rd and Grand. My assumption is that a local business owner (Corner Cafe) is using one of the street closing signs to put his own sign up to encouract people to call the Action Center. This "construction" has been going on now for at least the past 5 months, and I don't see a lot of progress being made. Apparently the business owner doesn't either.

Delayed construction projects can be very harmful to small businesses who lose visibility from the street, street traffic, pedestrian traffic, or in the case of the Corner Cafe, their parking lot get used for a street because the real street is closed (ps, you jerks doing this know who you are and should be more considerate to the business owner, just go a 1/2 block and make the loop).

KC needs to be sure projects like this -- whatever it is they are doing -- don't drag on for months needlessly.  Leaving big empty holes is not a solution to the problem of metal plates in the city.

What does the future infastructure of Kansas City look like?

Last week, the Bloomberg administration in New York City released a new manual for how future street development in the city will be done. The 232 page manual provides guidelines -- a "single framework and playbook" - for the types of projects that the adminstration will approve quickly as the city seeks to make over the 1970s-style streetscapes.  Improvements include energy-efficient lighting, wider sidewalks made of a rubber byproduct that is durable and more comfortable to walk on, more benches on sidewalks, sidewalk cafes, types of utility poles, building facades and awnings, narrower streets with slower-moving traffic -- and overall, be more aestetically pleasing, environmentally friendly, and treat strets as public spaces, not just thoroughfares for cars.

Obviously New York's vision is, and should be, different from Kansas City's. But the problem is, what is our vision?

Probably the most influential document for the vision for -- at least the central business corridor -- is the Sasaki Plan that was prepared for the Civic Council of Greater Kansas City. Even though this costly plan was designed as a "framework," many parts of it have been virtually ignored by developers and the folks at City Hall.  In just the past 4 years, things like the placement of the performing arts center, downtown baseball stadium, changed uses for Barney Allis Plaza, mass transit and the placement/use of parking garages and surface parking lots (especially the emphasis on shared parking spaces) have been largely ignored.  

So, if we're going to ignore the only major document that shows a vision for the future of Kansas City, what should we use as a roadmap?  Having a roadmap would provide us with better, prioritized use of taxpayer dollars, wiser use of TIF, provide a roadmap for developers so we would not have new development that doesn't fit into the longterm future of the city, and provide a guideline for what would, and would not, receive support and/or funding at City Hall.

Right now, it seems as if every new development opportunity is decided in complete isolation.

Light rail?  Let's form a committee to see where it should go.

Dog parks? Let's form a committee to see where they should go.

Troost BRT? Let's form a committee to examine.

Redevelopment at Linwood and Troost?  Let's form a committee.

What should and shouldn't go on our boulevards?  Let's form a committee.

And this is just current projects. It seems that as a city we have no idea what our long-term strategy should be for dealing with the issues facing our city. No roadmap for redeveloping our neighborhoods, for Section 8 housing or for dealing with crime, abandoned housing or schools buildings.  This doesn't even tackle futuristic issues like what do we do when there is greater public use of electric cars or better ways to enhance bicycling routes through our core.

It's time for us to build a roadmap. Put together a well-publicized document that people can stand behind and say THIS is the vision for Kansas City. Sure, not everyone will agree with it. But it will prevent us from making all future decisions for roads, parks, development and transit in a complete vacuum... and a little cohesiveness and vision can only be a good thing.

A hole to the past

 There is a huge hole in the street on one of our walk routes over at 33rd and Holmes. When you look into the hole, you can see the remnants of a Kansas City of a few decades ago.  A trolly track that turns down a residential street that was paved in cobblestones.

12th and Main has been doing a nice job covering the old Cobblestone streets, but I think the Trolly track is particularly interesting. The fact that it makes a corner from one residential street onto another one is just a sign of how advanced our public transit systerm used to be in Kansas City.

Now, we live in a Kansas City that has a less-than effective public transit system -- with likely more cuts on the way.

While rail lines are more costly to install than bus lines, they are, however significantly less expensive to run (and thus, less subject to cuts) than bus lines. It's just a shame that our city paved over one of the best rail systems in the country in the 50s and 60s to make way for the automobile.

Speaking of the automobile, check out the hole this was found artifact was found in:

This hole has been there for a couple of months now. I'm glad our mayor has declared war on metal plates...so that now, we can have gaping holes in the road instead. I don't mind construction for improvements, but let's get on with it...and not insult my intelligence with the war on metal plates. 

Our New Powerlines on Troost

So today I took a cold and windy walk down Troost. For the past couple of weeks, KCP&L has been installing some of the new, large, metal lutility poles along Troost from 47th street to about 18th street.

We've known for awhile that the light poles were coming, but it is still painful to see them go up along a couple of stretches in front of historic buildings along Troost. As most readers know, Troost has become the commonly thought of racial dividing line in the city. While many who live along the corridor, including the folks that founded the Tulips on Troost project, have longed for, and tried to help with, the redevelopment of businesses along the Troost corridor -- with the hope that the beautification of Troost, along with thriving businesses, could help make Troost a meeting place vs one of division.  The ugly metal poles aren't helpful in that goal -- but aren't a deterant either.

The Tulips on Troost project, along with some of the streetscape improvements planned for the Troost BRT line (with major streetscape renoovations scheduled for intersections at Linwood, Armour, Brush Creek, Emanuel Cleaver, Manheim, 31st, 39th and 63rd streets, will definitely make the streetsscape more viewer friendly -- along with better transportation along the route, will really help.

From my talks with KCP&L people, it was pretty inevitable that these poles needed to go up (although, I never got a good explanation of why using the new Troost BRT construction couldn't have been used to burry the heavier lines along the route).

Meanwhile, the poles also serve as a reminder that KCP&L also has plans to put a new electrical substation up along the route.

Initially, KCP&L had proposed a location for their new sustation -- smack in the middle of one of the more viable retail areas along Troost and butting against historic homes. 

However, after neighborhood leaders rejected, and several public hearings, KCP&L met with a committee of neighborhood leaders to help determine a couple of better locations for the substation. The committee chose two potential locations. While one location has already been eliminated due to their inability to reach a purchase agreement with the current owner, they have now moved on to the group's second favorite choice (at the corner of 30th and Harrison). This corner is currently empty -- and has industrial mostly surrounding it. There is one home, literally right across the street from the site that is far from ideal.  But this site is certainly better than the previously proposed location (although I do hope there could be some compensation for the owner of that home).

I'm sure I'll post more as the substation talks progress.

Energy Efficiency/better air may require infastructure upgrades

 The city of Stockholm, Sweden, in its quest to become the world's first auto emmissions-free city, has begun installing car plug ins for parking spots so that people can park their electric cars, plug them in, and have a fully-charged car when they return.

A little closer to home,Seattle Washington has begun offering plug-in parking spaces for electric cars at the Seattle-Tacoma airport.

As people become more concerned with the environment, and fuel efficient, alternative fuel vehicles become more prominent among upscale, environmentally conscious people, more progressive cities are going to be expected to supply new necessity items like plug-in parking spaces. Already, cities that cater to the "creative class" of people are providing these services. And it is these cities that are attracting new business startups, creative services, etc that are fueling economic growth in these cities.

Kansas City is fortunate to house a strong creative class community. Large corporations like Hallmark rely on the creative class of workers. Kansas City also has a strong array of "creative-class" jobs with a thriving advertising community, top architectural firms, and a strong, independent art community (along with the Kansas City Art Institute).  These creative people are the types of people that many businesses look for when they build branch offices -- which provides a wealth of business growth opportunities for the city -- no TIF required. 

But we're going to have to provide services for these people. But if we do, it will be a great way to encourage them to not only work in Kansas City, but to make their homes here as well -- which can help fill the void of empty housing in our city center.

And before people dismiss this as a pipe dream, that only happens in Sweden, or on the West Coast, might I remind you that even Green Bay, WI has started to step in this direction by offering parking spaces for Hybrid automobiles only. That's right, we're less progressive in this area than Green Bay, WI.

The biggest question is, are our city's leaders future-thinking enough to see where city life is headed?

Hat Tip: Springwise, and PSFK.