Infrastructure Appreciation
In Atlanta, there is little appreciation for the power of infrastructure. Atlanta’s residents would rather fight individual battles in the relatively inconsequential zoning wars than get into the real meat of defining a community’s character. Even major infrastructure projects like the Beltline get reduced to the individual projects proposed within the TAD boundary.
A recent article by John Sugg points out the most fundamental flaws in how Atlanta’s residents think about the Beltline.
The Mason project is not perfect. The oversupply of parking spaces within the proposed Piedmont Park towers will inflate the project’s cost to an amount greater than the project’s real value. Assumptions about the local infrastructure are being made ahead of actual decisions about the local infrastructure.
Meanwhile, in New York, Manhattan is not the only place where you can find tall condo towers next to parks. (Central Park and its surrounding developments have been a frequent image in the minds of Mason’s critics.) In Brooklyn, new developments are cropping up to accomodate new masses of people moving into the borough. Among these developments, I caught this tall tower next to a public park:
Granted, the tower isn’t as tall as Mason’s proposed development. What I saw with my own eyes was a development that fit within the existing infrastructure, which included a tight street grid with public parks integrated within the local urban fabric. Some of the parks, such as the one above, included sports fields. Others were simply parks with trees, grass and very cute and friendly squirrels. For the most part, Mason’s proposed development will fit within the context of the proposed infrastructure for the area. As more people move back to the city, single family homes will become increasingly out of context.
July 25th, 2006 at 4:07 pm
There’s one thing I don’t think the Piedmont neighbors are aware of: all of the recent Beltline plans involve a design to fix that intersection between Monroe, Virginia & 10th St. Wonder if that would make a difference to them? Although these are the same people who are fighting the deck in the park. If you look at the plans for that, it’s a fabulous design with the buried road on the east side and finally incorporating the north woods. Really well done http://www.piedmontpark.org/restoration/NW_reclamation.html
July 25th, 2006 at 5:44 pm
Heaven forbid anyone should be allowed to have a condo on the park. If the neighborhood doesn’t like Mason’s plans, they should buy the land from him and develop what they want - which is nothing.
October 12th, 2006 at 3:33 pm
Creative Loafing: Protecting the Beltline
It’s been three weeks since the mega-developers who proposed two condo towers overlooking Piedmont Park decided to walk away from the deal, throwing a serious wrench in Atlanta’s ambition to build a loop of transit and trails circling the city.
Did the Beltline negotiations actually fall apart because the city screwed up? Or did the city have no choice but to turn the Masons down?
Find out at atlanta.creativeloafing.com :
http://atlanta.creativeloafing.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A139077