RE: O’Quinn on his no vote
I understand why the people in the neighborhoods north of the BJCC are worried. They saw what happened in Avondale. Many on this board look at Avondale as a huge success, turning a run-down old neighborhood into what has become one of the featured attraction areas to the young and hip, to tourists.
The people who had lived there for years got pushed out. Rising property values are of no value when you rent your home cheap because you don't make that much. Low income housing is of great value to those who need it. This has resulted in an odd sort of reverse NIMBY, where poor people don't want to see such things happen close to them, because if they get pushed out there are very limited supplies of replacement housing at that price point. Even if they own their homes, their property taxes double or triple.
I think the stadium is a smart project, long overdue, even aside from the UAB connection. Regions/Railroad Parks were smart, and they paid off very well and will continue to for years. My wife worked in that neighborhood for twenty-nine years, most of it where Regions Field sits now, across the street from the Sherwin-Williams store. When Regions was going in, her office moved to the corner of 2nd Ave S and 18th St, a block from RR Park. I saw first hand in detail what it did for the neighborhood. I've driven through Avondale for years going from Irondale to UAB, and again, I am well aware of the changes in that area, good and bad.
I guess my point is that while there were a number of dissenting opinions which were self-serving ("Screw a stadium, spend it in my neighborhood") or politically motivated ("Grease my palm first or you don't get my vote", or "I'm fine with doing it, but I want to channel it in such a way that my friends and I get a piece, so let's delay it while I work on that", or "I'll stand in the door and fight it so my district will remember and vote for me"). Then there are the ill-informed who are full of wishful thinking ("We should build a Dome instead, it will be nicer, and what about if it rains?") who refuse to comprehend, no matter how often it is explained, that the city simply cannot afford to build a dome. The old "Wish in one hand and poop in the other and see which one fills up first" seems to apply to that crowd.
The local neighborhood associations represent people whose homes are on the line. I suspect that there are not many members of those groups who are going to benefit from a land boom on Northside. They deserved an honest hearing of their concerns, even if they were overridden for what was considered to be the greater good.
(This post was last modified: 04-04-2018 10:59 AM by UAB Band Dad.)
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