Atlanta-based Halpern Development has asked the City of Greensboro for a 60-day delay on its request to rezone 6 acres at the corner of Friendly Avenue and Hobbs Road in order to come up with a plan more suitable to nearby residents. A revised plan would mix in some residential development, but I don’t see where that’s going to appease the neighborhood —many proposals for high-density residential development meet with opposition from neighborhoods concerned about increased traffic.
Meanwhile, the N&R editorializes, citing a Facebook post from City Council member Nancy Hoffmann, who has stated her opposition to Halpern’s current plan:
In a Facebook post, Hoffmann challenged the Atlanta-based developer to be more creative. “For decades, throughout Greensboro, we have settled for mediocre development projects, lackluster architectural design, pedestrian shopping options, and uninspiring retail experiences,” Hoffmann wrote. “ … Why do we continue to accept the merely mediocre?” Hoffmann prefers “a mixed-use development that would combine the best of all possible residential and retail worlds.”
Good point. The city should use its leverage to negotiate the best possible use of the site, especially one as coveted as this.
OK– the N&R’s big on naming names, as evidenced by its reporting on Sen. Trudy Wade’s proposed plan to shrink the City Council.
With that in mind, to which ‘mediocre development projects’ is Hoffmann referring? Friendly Center, or its next-door offspring the Shoppes at Friendly Center? The Village at North Elm? Greenway at Fisher Park Apartments?
I’m not taking the side of the developers here —residents certainly have the right to protest development encroaching upon their neighborhood. But for a City Council member for to say that Gboro for decades has been settling for mediocre development when all I’ve is developers bending over backwards to meet the city’s desire aesthetically pleasing high-density development strikes me as disingenuous.
Little wonder business leaders want to shrink the size of the City Council. As for business leaders afraid to speak up over their desire to shrink the council, high-powered developer and Rhino publisher Roy Carroll writes:
If the business community really supports restructuring the City Council, why aren’t more people willing to speak up for these ideas? The simple fact is that most business leaders are smart enough to avoid speaking up publically in support of something that the City Council may not like. These same business owners are concerned about retaliation by offended councilmembers against those that speak up. I can’t blame them, I am just too hardheaded to stay quiet given the significance of the crossroads we are facing as a community.
Translation—with friends like Nancy Hoffmann, who needs enemies?
