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Originally Posted by Drmyeyes
Regarding blame assigned to the church in this matter, I'll say that churches are community leaders. They bear responsibility for making decisions that positively affect the lives of people in the community. In this role, that may be uncomfortable at times, churches have an obligation to hear criticism regarding decisions they make so that in future, the decisions they make will be better ones.
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churches can influence a community, even have a positive effect in the communities they are in, however, it is very dangerous to call churches, community leaders. I view neighborhood activists as community leaders, the mayor and his council are community leaders, even certain pastors and priests lead communities, but churches are religious institutions, the house of the Lord, and I don't think they should be leading the community...like say, an Ayatollah and the way they impose Islamic Law upon their community. Right now, we have blured the lines of church and state and allowed the church to assume a community leadership role, instead of a volunteer force that can assist our community leaders in achieving their goals...such as ending homelessness. Instead empowered churches go beyond feeding the hungry, and try to impose Christian law upon the land, such as the anti-gay ballot measures, abortion restrictions and such.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Drmyeyes
Respectfully, I'll say I never ever heard of any activists as a group that would accept nothing less than the Rosefriend and Carriage House where they stand with no flexibility on tower max height. The paltry few voices that had the gumption to sit through the long design review meetings did voice a fundamental objection to tower height, but it was the lack of innovative thinking on the part of the development team that precluded any options that might have existed in that respect.
On their part, an obsession with constructing the most cost efficient structure possible existed to the extent that no building configuration that might have accomodated the Rosefriend Building into it's design scheme could ever even have been considered. Absolutely, I believe that if the development team had seriously proposed an assymetrically designed tower allowing for greater height in the NE corner of the block, at least a greater exposure of light and sky to the park could have been sustained even if this meant the destruction or extremely difficult relocation of the Rosefriend to the NW corner of the block.
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Opus has to make a profit, they don't build buildings for the community good, they build them for their shareholders, their owners. Asking Opus to move the Rosefriend back to the NW corner, to allow a taller tower that wouldn't have as much impact on a tower on the freed up NW corner, so the height didn't 'impose' in some people's minds, on the park blocks is a non-starter. That is, unless those people went out into the community and tried to raise money to pay for the relocation. I've found that putting the money where the mouth is, is the best way to get people, especially large corporate people, pay attention.
That was my premise, the activists judgement got clouded because of the emotional attachment and anger, that the owners of the lot, Opus, pushed through whatever they could get through. Now we are all losers because we loose a great building, get a mediocre tower, and the tower will have a larger impact on the park blocks, as far as shadows, as a block long 250' tower, as opposed to a quarter block 450' tower.
Maybe there was nothing that could have been done. Our city policies didn't protect that building, and the policies that stand won't stop another Rosefriend from coming down. I hope the people that really felt strongly about saving the Rosefriend will now stand up to create new laws that will protect other historical buildings...possibly by allowing owners to sell their FAR to other section of town to limit any new development to the existing height, and than offer other incentives or restrictions to further discourage the demolision of historic treasures. We cannot rely on people to do things for the community good, and so we need to protect what is good in our community.