Bryn Mawr NRP Phase II Planning
Area 7 Focus Group
Thursday, March 17, 7-8:30 PM
In addition to Lisa Pogoff,
facilitator, and Greg Lecker, note taker; attendees include: Judy Remington, Julia Classen,
Emily Anderson, Karen Soderberg, and Daryl Carter. Area
7 is the area bounded by Bassett’s
Neighborhood
strengths:
- Identity, cohesive community,
- Neighborhood in a Park
- Natural resources of parks as well as unnatural resources of freeways and access - //
- Community spirit and volunteers
- BMNA and its strength
- Geographical definition of neighborhood is unique
- Housing, though small in size, is high quality; allows expansion and renovation
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“Crown Jewel” of
- On twice-weekly or thrice-weekly walks through neighborhood, note that walks are shoveled early
- Stable population and residency compared with other neighborhoods – homes lived in by only three owners including the home’s original owner (homes are known by the original owner’s name still)
- Some elderly residents still live in the home where they are the original owner
- High degree of civic involvement – 95% of registered voters vote
Neighborhood weaknesses:
- Pitifully little housing for seniors, for example: Betty & Alan Bruce, “neighborhood giants”, were forced to move away from the neighborhood because there were no senior housing options for them and other folks looking to “outsource” exterior home maintenance. My neighbor tells me this all the time. It would be helpful to offer services to seniors so that they can remain in their homes (care services, exterior maintenance services) - ///
- The small town feeling is a weakness as well as a strength – encountering “personality moments”
- Drawn by the presence of empty land in such an accessible location, development can bring traffic and damage neighborhood character and quality of life. Bryn Mawr is one of the neighborhoods most vulnerable to this threat of development. - /////
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“Tear-downs” threaten neighborhood character – McMansions that fill every portion of the lot with no open
or green space. It’s not just the home
appearance. The escalation in resulting
home prices changes the nature of the folks living there – from a “neighborhood
within a park” to a “suburb in a city”, which coincidentally is the claim of
several other city neighborhoods (like
-
On the other hand, it is important to support
redevelopment of existing housing, especially for dormer or second floor
additions or additions to the rear of the house. It’s important for the development and
renovations to be done nicely rather then tear downs like in
- Limited public transportation – bus service reductions and fare hikes. This is a self-fulfilling prophecy – continuum of reduced ridership, reduced service, and then resulting reduced ridership
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Story of one former rider who now drives west to the
- Proximity to the “other side of the tracks” – the near north side, but we see this situation improving. An example of incidents are the two occasions where youth stole and hot-wired a park utility vehicle to damage park land, including a wetland restoration.
- Graffiti on public property, but at least it’s cleaned up fairly quickly
- One needs to be more cautious when walking east than walking west
- Crime at my house prior to our ownership but not since we’ve moved in
- On one hand, all park areas are busy and thriving during the summer. The beach improvements are great though the planning and construction time is totalling several years. On the other hand, park changes like the 2004 clearing, widening, and rerouting of park paths for the City of Lakes Loppet have occurred seemingly overnight with no public notice
- We are very vulnerable to the presently rogue park board – there is concern about upcoming MPRB elections and board turnover. Our present park board commissioner is friendly to issues important to us, though she doesn’t attend all MPRB meetings.
- Crime is up in the neighborhood
- Overwhelming amount of buckthorn in our park lands despite our valiant eradication efforts. Maybe we can enlist school children
- No grocery store – though this doesn’t really bother me
- Would like to see the corner store (NW corner of Penn Avenue and Cedar Lake Road) developed into something. It’s a prime space that, unfortunately, is always in transition. It’s not a very big place. We could use a restaurant or a sandwich shop - //
- BM Market – I’m not a frequent user- it’s not an issue of size, but rather the product selection, little produce or bread, only canned goods
What issues are important or will be important in the future?
- See many of the weaknesses described above.
- Development! It’s a multi-faceted issue. Some development is good, for example the Fruen Mill
- BMNA should be responsible for the overall vision
- Individuals may be more shortsighted – for example, one neighbor comments that she is only concerned that no Anwatin Woods development happens in the next 10 years, only that just this development happen. She doesn’t care what happens in 10 years after she moves out.
- The land use plan seems to favor individual property rights over the good of the neighborhood/city
- We have a good land use plan but no one (city, BMNA) has the power to enforce it
- The City has no appropriate zoning laws. The current city is very pro-development
- McMansions dwarfing and shadowing adjacent smaller homes
- Big environmental impacts – runoff
- The abundance of wildlife is threatened by development
- Rather than wholesale condemnation of the MPS, we ought to strengthen connections between the neighborhood and our community schools. The neighborhood connection with BM Elementary School is stronger than our connection with Anwatin Middle School
- Given the neighborhood cohesiveness, we have the opportunity to build on a vision. We could do a demonstration solar or wind project. How about a vision of the neighborhood “going off the grid”. We have unique physical resources, characteristics, and community.
- Downtown Bryn Mawr is nice, the cosmetic improvements are appreciated
One service, project, program or thing that BMNA could provide:
- Senior services and housing
- Put authority behind the Land Use Plan - //
- Land Use requires a balance! It’s not just a question of development or no development!
- Save Anwatin Woods – an environmental learning center; a unique opportunity to demonstrate the connections between Theodore Wirth watershed and Bassett’s Creek Park watershed
- Create a living legacy – illustrate what a watershed looks like – a wide variety of features, watersheds, and wildlife
- Work with public transportation agencies – create a park and ride lot, possibly at the Qwest Building, with more speedy connections to the U of M or to St. Paul; a 60-minute commute there is too long, 30 minutes would be acceptable. The trick is “what can the neighborhood do?”
- BMNA could seek grants to purchase the Stucki/Anwatin Woods land for a learning center
- It would be nice if BMNA got behind and supported Save Anwatin Woods efforts for this. BMNA could relieve the few exhausted individuals whow are working to Save Anwatin Woods.
- Traffic calming for Xerxes, Vincent, Chestnut and Glenwood Avenues. These routes are being used as cut-through shortcuts to Penn Avenue, to I-394, and as alternate freeways to downtown Minneapolis. Repeat the Burma-Shave style traffic calming sign – a nice use of humor; plus it’s our humor, our history - //
- Address development - //
- We have a coherent plan (LUP) but no power behind it
- It would be a nice change if BMNA were to take up the issue of development. BMNA often serves as a mediator between developers and the neighborhood rather than advocating for the neighborhood’s interests
- Too bad that Fruen Mill redevelopment is stalled
- Allow access to Fruen Mill – maybe buying the four Vincent lots (between N. 2nd Street & Glenwood) to provide access across the creek to Fruen Mill. Emergency vehicle access across the RR tracks (even if the CP rail line is eventually eliminated because of the loss of its customers) is the problem. - //
- Work with Friends of Bassett Creek
- Be a better neighbor for our neighbors: Improve communication between Bryn Mawr and Harrison: there are meetings and opportunities; but it’s difficult to learn of these opportunities since Harrison doesn’t have a widely distributed newspaper nor advertises events in the Bryn Mawr Bugle. - //
- Improve our relationship with MPRB
What types of
housing programs should BMNA provide?
- Needs-test based housing program – it benefits all to improve condition of housing stock
- Assist seniors and disabled adults so they can remain in their homes. Services like lawn mowing, snow shoveling; most contractors won’t come to shovel unless snow accumulations amounts reach 2” or more – we don’t want our seniors outside shoveling even that or a smaller amount of snow. Serve a coordinating and funding role; Develop a service and then advertise it; an arrangement if not a cooperative. Children soliciting for such services show up to late to be useful. They arrive just after the snow is already shovelled.- ///
- Bugle classifieds include only some lawn services (and trumpet lessons) rather than the handyman services and other exterior home maintenance services.
- Provide design assistance for all, not just lower income, so that exterior renovations and additions are more sensitively designed
- Provide a resource guide to advertise available programs for all income levels
- First target housing items related to health and safety issues, target low income folks and then expand the program by moving up the income scale to middle class applicants