Impound Lot
Posted: May 19th, 2014, 1:47 pm
Saw this on mpls-issues e-democracy so assuming it's legit to post here. There's a meeting tonight to talk about the impound lot. The feeling from Harrison leaders is that the city is reneging on its promise to move or eliminate the impound lot. If the lot stays it will havew a profound negative impact on the ability for the neighborhood to revitalize the Bassett Creek valley and Glenwood Ave.
I will be there tonight. It will be a great chance to meet some of the great people leading Harrison and a way to stand up for urbanism and investment on the Northside.
From: "Kennedy Willis" <[email protected]>
Subject: [Mpls] Impound Lot Reducation & Enhancement Public Hearing, 6pm on
May 19th
To: [email protected]
Date: Sat, 17 May 2014 06:27:22 +1200 (NZST) (3 days, 1 hour ago)
X-Boundary: _______________________________________________________________________________________________________
― Attachment links are at the end of this email ―
Hi Everyone-
Beth Grosen, Senior Project Coordinator at CPED, will convene an event for the public to learn about study progress on the effort to reduce and enhance the city impound facilities. Council members Blong Yang and Lisa Goodman are expected to be in attendance. Options for the revised impound footprint will be shown and feedback is requested. The meeting will be held
Monday, May 19 2014 at 6pm
Multipurpose Room
Harrison Community Center
503 Irving Avenue
Minneapolis MN 55405
This is a great opportunity to further explore why there aren’t plans to relocate the lot while also reviewing what options there are for shrinking the lot.
Many Harrison residents will be highly concerned because for over a decade the Basset Creek Valley Master Plan has called for a removal of the impound lot, not a reduction. Residents and City Council have called for the relocation of the impound lot since 2001, and Ryan Companies was granted five years' exclusive development rights in 2008. The planned $1 million dollar investment in simply reducing the lot raises concerns that reduction is a longer-term plan than the Basset Creek Valley Master Plan allowed for by the “phase out” language, which is language that was only intended to provide the city and county time to establish the resources and new location for complete relocation of the lot.
The costs that Beth Grosen and others have lamented for completely relocating the impound lot to another part of the city should be critically weighed. For example, those costs seem well worth the environmental and racial justice that would be achieved with its removal. Furthermore, the development (into housing, business, and safe open spaces) and subsequent tax revenues of the area have been estimated to more than offset relocation costs. When weighing the costs for relocation, we have to be asking ourselves what all we are buying for the money- and it’s not just a simple relocation that we could be purchasing. We are also purchasing steps toward making the area a productive source of wealth for the surrounding communities and the city itself as well as resolving the historical environmental and racial injustice that Harrison has endured because of its designation as a dumping ground for industrial development. By relocating the impound lot, the city would also be honoring their commitment to the Basset Creek Valley Master Plan and facilitating the development that Ryan Companies has been granted exclusive rights to do in the area.
The time to equitably share both the benefits and the burdens of industrial development and city planning is long over due for Harrison residents and proponents for Basset Creek Valley development, who not only have an impound lot to contend with, but also school bus and semi-truck storage yards, a city concrete recycling and crushing yard, abandoned private-industry lots that have caused the soil and groundwater to be polluted, and now a proposed rail storage facility to be placed in the already industrially overburdened Basset Creek Valley. Reducing and “enhancing” the impound lot while proposing to place yet another burden and obstruction to housing and business development (i.e., the rail storage facility) does not spell out relief for Harrison. It reinforces Harrison as an industrial dumping ground with jobs, housing, and productive amenities lost in translation.
The May 19th Impound Lot Reduction & Enhancement meeting will be held in the Harrison Community Center’s multi-purpose room at 503 Irving Avenue North.
We are encouraging folks from around the Twin Cities to attend and hope that you can share an invite to appropriate listservs and email groups.
I hope that you can attend. Harrison residents should attend in order to be well heard, and support from the wider community is sought and welcomed!
In solidarity,
Kennedy Willis
Community Organizer
Harrison Neighborhood Association
503 Irving Avenue North Ste 100
Minneapolis, MN 55405
(612) 374-4849
[email protected]
I will be there tonight. It will be a great chance to meet some of the great people leading Harrison and a way to stand up for urbanism and investment on the Northside.
From: "Kennedy Willis" <[email protected]>
Subject: [Mpls] Impound Lot Reducation & Enhancement Public Hearing, 6pm on
May 19th
To: [email protected]
Date: Sat, 17 May 2014 06:27:22 +1200 (NZST) (3 days, 1 hour ago)
X-Boundary: _______________________________________________________________________________________________________
― Attachment links are at the end of this email ―
Hi Everyone-
Beth Grosen, Senior Project Coordinator at CPED, will convene an event for the public to learn about study progress on the effort to reduce and enhance the city impound facilities. Council members Blong Yang and Lisa Goodman are expected to be in attendance. Options for the revised impound footprint will be shown and feedback is requested. The meeting will be held
Monday, May 19 2014 at 6pm
Multipurpose Room
Harrison Community Center
503 Irving Avenue
Minneapolis MN 55405
This is a great opportunity to further explore why there aren’t plans to relocate the lot while also reviewing what options there are for shrinking the lot.
Many Harrison residents will be highly concerned because for over a decade the Basset Creek Valley Master Plan has called for a removal of the impound lot, not a reduction. Residents and City Council have called for the relocation of the impound lot since 2001, and Ryan Companies was granted five years' exclusive development rights in 2008. The planned $1 million dollar investment in simply reducing the lot raises concerns that reduction is a longer-term plan than the Basset Creek Valley Master Plan allowed for by the “phase out” language, which is language that was only intended to provide the city and county time to establish the resources and new location for complete relocation of the lot.
The costs that Beth Grosen and others have lamented for completely relocating the impound lot to another part of the city should be critically weighed. For example, those costs seem well worth the environmental and racial justice that would be achieved with its removal. Furthermore, the development (into housing, business, and safe open spaces) and subsequent tax revenues of the area have been estimated to more than offset relocation costs. When weighing the costs for relocation, we have to be asking ourselves what all we are buying for the money- and it’s not just a simple relocation that we could be purchasing. We are also purchasing steps toward making the area a productive source of wealth for the surrounding communities and the city itself as well as resolving the historical environmental and racial injustice that Harrison has endured because of its designation as a dumping ground for industrial development. By relocating the impound lot, the city would also be honoring their commitment to the Basset Creek Valley Master Plan and facilitating the development that Ryan Companies has been granted exclusive rights to do in the area.
The time to equitably share both the benefits and the burdens of industrial development and city planning is long over due for Harrison residents and proponents for Basset Creek Valley development, who not only have an impound lot to contend with, but also school bus and semi-truck storage yards, a city concrete recycling and crushing yard, abandoned private-industry lots that have caused the soil and groundwater to be polluted, and now a proposed rail storage facility to be placed in the already industrially overburdened Basset Creek Valley. Reducing and “enhancing” the impound lot while proposing to place yet another burden and obstruction to housing and business development (i.e., the rail storage facility) does not spell out relief for Harrison. It reinforces Harrison as an industrial dumping ground with jobs, housing, and productive amenities lost in translation.
The May 19th Impound Lot Reduction & Enhancement meeting will be held in the Harrison Community Center’s multi-purpose room at 503 Irving Avenue North.
We are encouraging folks from around the Twin Cities to attend and hope that you can share an invite to appropriate listservs and email groups.
I hope that you can attend. Harrison residents should attend in order to be well heard, and support from the wider community is sought and welcomed!
In solidarity,
Kennedy Willis
Community Organizer
Harrison Neighborhood Association
503 Irving Avenue North Ste 100
Minneapolis, MN 55405
(612) 374-4849
[email protected]