ruminations on the importance of residency on opinions

[thelakelander]

Strictly looking at the overlay, it appears to accommodate historic commercial clusters while also preserving the residential areas of the neighborhood.  Also speaking of the map above, I went ahead and added the conceptual mobility plan streetcar route to it.  It actually fits the overlay's higher density sections like a glove.

It appears your issue about the overlay focuses on transitioning commercial/residential uses as opposed to what is allowed within the various districts.  In every situation, you can apply for a zoning exception if you believe you're situation creates a hardship if all requirements of the overlay are met.  However, this is no different from any other zoning district within the city (DT, Durkeeville, Southside, Riverside, Mandarin, etc.). 

I think one ends up easily shooting themselves in the foot when they're in violation the code in general before seeking to find a solution to their situation.  This is why taking the due diligence to understanding zoning's impact on your desired property is critical before making a significant financial investment.  Its sort of like outright buying a property without at least paying for a phase one environmental assessment.  You're asking for trouble if you go into a situation blindfolded.  With that said, I see the three or four Park & King business situations being completely different animals that must be addressed on their individual merits.

Personally, I don't think the overlay "in general" is a problem.  The avenues are there for exceptions if a potential hardship exists.  Also "intent" can be argued multiple ways for specific situations.  I think the real problem is its difficult for the average person (resident or business owner) to find and understand the city's zoning code in general.

[thelakelander]

So your problems with exceptions don't necessarily apply to the overlay, since the same process is applied to the entire city.  So am I right in saying you'd like to see the exception process removed from the entire zoning code (not just the overlay district)? 

In general, exceptions are there to protect an area's quality of life.  Especially, when more intensive land uses abut residential uses.  They keep incompatible uses (ex. building a stage for concerts or liquor store next to a house, etc.) from outright popping up and taking away from an area's quality of life.  In such a case, the entity who wants to put in the intense use would have to develop a plan to mitigate the negatives it may cause on the surrounding area and then apply for an exception.

I love urbanism as much as the next guy but that doesn't mean I'd want to invest in a house, only to have my next door neighbor wake up and decided he wants to turn his property into an arsenic coating wood preservative business.

[thelakelander]

When addressing exceptions, I need specifics.  For example, in the Loft's case, I think their situation deals with an "extra condition" that they agreed to use their rear for parking only.  That stretch of street happens to be within the commercial design standards character area.  According to the overlay, your minimum allowable rear setback is 15' (Sec. 656.399.20). 

link: http://library.municode.com/HTML/12174/level4/TITXVIILAUS_CH656ZOCO_PT3SCDIRE_SPORIAVZOOV.html#TITXVIILAUS_CH656ZOCO_PT3SCDIRE_SPORIAVZOOV_S656.399.20BUST

So unless, I'm missing something, the overlay doesn't stop commercial entities from using the rear of their properties.  Anyone with such a stipulation must have applied for something else and as a part of their agreement, agreed to limiting what they could do with a particular space.  That's not an exception issue.  That's just a poor deal of negotiation on their part.

[Tacachale]

IMO there's nothing wrong with the overlay and the zoning in general; they've just been invoked in some wrongheaded ways. As far as I can tell no one is really clear on the deal with the Loft/Rogue back area, but as soon as there's a noise complaint, the Urban Silence Brigade comes out in full force to shut them down, claiming the writing's on the wall and totally supports them.

With Kickbacks, it's abundantly obvious that the situation is a gray area. Moreover, the owner has made suggestions on alternative ways to mitigate the parking issue beyond building more spaces, which I'd argue is in the spirit of the overlay. But rather than let him spend his own money doing what he feels will make his culturally significant business more successful, the neighborhood organization is fighting tooth and nail to make him reduce the size of the expansion, invoking the overlay. Just not cool.

[Dog Walker]

The problem is that we have simply forgotten the old methods of getting along, the old tolerances for social noise, the old solutions for all of these issues.  We seem to be expecting a vibrant walkable neighborhood to be just like the suburbs but with more gingerbread architecture and fabulous mousses at the local restaurants (that all close promptly at

Stephen,  the straw is beginning to stick out of the edges of the argument you are making.  I don't think anyone who lives in our walkable neighborhoods expects it to be like the suburbs (what a horrible thought!) except maybe the crazy who lives across from Intuition.  In the suburbs he would probably be the president of the home owners association.

I think the expectation that one would not be kept awake in the small hours of the morning by amplified music or industrial activities is not unreasonable even in our dense, historic neighborhoods.  It would not have been tolerated or expected in the 1890's either especially with open windows and no air-conditioning.

[dougskiles]

One of the coolest things about old Jax is to get up on a Saturday and drive the old streetcar routes through various neighborhoods in town.  You'll quickly discover that just about every single neighborhood has some sort of small commercial cluster around a streetcar junction.  It's a cool long lost development pattern that I'd love to see come back to Jax one day.  In fact, I think a lot of our older neighborhoods are doomed until the connectivity that built them comes back. 

You are on to something here.  And perhaps this idea deserves its own thread.  Are the maps of the old streetcar lines available?  And do they show the stops?  I would love to see historic markers/signs placed at each one of these locations, along with the historic route on the sign.  We have been talking for sometime at SMPS about putting in more historic markers, particularly for a walking/biking tour.  This would be a great complement to it.

[thelakelander]

Here's a map of the old streetcar lines:



The red routes are the original streetcar lines abandoned in 1936.  The light blue linework are some of Ock's ideas for future streetcar routes.

source: http://lightrailjacksonville.webs.com/jacksonvilletrolleyhistory.htm

[Dog Walker]

Lake,  Is there a way to get a more detailed copy of the streetcar map?  Your idea of driving or biking the old line routes is very appealing, but the map is too difficult to read when you zoom in on the image. 

There were a lot more routes than I thought.  What a pity that they were destroyed.

[Jimmy]

+1

And is there a list somewhere of the actual stops/stations?

[thelakelander]

I'm not sure there were stations.  Ock, can you verify if there were stations and stops?

[thelakelander]

Lake,  Is there a way to get a more detailed copy of the streetcar map?  Your idea of driving or biking the old line routes is very appealing, but the map is too difficult to read when you zoom in on the image. 

There were a lot more routes than I thought.  What a pity that they were destroyed.

Ock should have a detailed copy.  If not, I'll try and get one from COJ later this week.

[Dog Walker]

Lake,  Is there a way to get a more detailed copy of the streetcar map?  Your idea of driving or biking the old line routes is very appealing, but the map is too difficult to read when you zoom in on the image. 

There were a lot more routes than I thought.  What a pity that they were destroyed.

The wisdom of the original planners of the neighborhood is actually quite impressive, DogWalker.  Transit dependent, mixed use, embedded retail, and walkable.  Without all of those lines the neighborhood wouldn't have worked.

It is literally the opposite of how most of us preservationist types have been taught to view the development of the historic districts here in jacksonville.

That's why I live in Riverside.  Almost 100% of my life can be accomplished on foot or by bicycle.  My dentist is in Southside and we don't have a hardware store in RAHD.  All  of this thanks to how the area was originally planned.

Don't know what you mean by that last.  We've always known that Springfield, San Marco and Riverside/Avondale were streetcar suburbs.  I own/have owned at least five commercial buildings that were built on the streetcar lines to serve the needs of the neighborhoods.

Transit oriented development is nothing new

[thelakelander]

There were a lot more routes than I thought.  What a pity that they were destroyed.

13,828,904 passengers rode the streetcar system in 1912 on 42 miles of track.  By the time the system ceased operations in 1936, it had over 60 miles of track spreadout across the urban core. 

[Dog Walker]

How could they possibly have believed that buses were going to be better than that?!  20/20 hindsight on our part, I guess.

(SIGH!)

[thelakelander]

^They didn't.  The replacement of the streetcar system with buses was a part of a national scheme by General Motors.


Pacific Electric Railway streetcars stacked at a junkyard on Terminal Island, March 1956

The General Motors streetcar conspiracy (also known as the National City Lines conspiracy) refers to allegations and convictions in relation to a program by General Motors (GM) and a number of other companies to purchase and dismantle streetcars (trams/trolleys) and electric trains in many cities across the United States and replace them with bus services. The lack of clear information about exactly what occurred has led to intrigue, inaccuracy and conspiracy theories and for some claim that it was the primary reason for the virtual elimination of effective public transport in American cities by the 1970s; in reality there were other factors which led to this outcome. The story has been explored many times in print, film and other media, notably in Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Taken for a Ride and The End of Suburbia.

During the period from 1936 to 1950, National City Lines and Pacific City Lines, with investment from General Motors, Firestone Tire, Standard Oil of California, Phillips Petroleum, Mack Trucks, and the Federal Engineering Corporation bought over 100 electric surface-traction systems into bus systems in 45 cities including Baltimore, Newark, Los Angeles (mainly the "Yellow Cars"), New York City, Oakland and San Diego. In 1946, Edwin J. Quinby, a retired naval lieutenant commander alerted transportation officials across the country to what he called "a careful, deliberately planned campaign to swindle you out of your most important and valuable public utilitiesâ€"your Electric Railway System". GM and other companies were subsequently convicted in 1949 of conspiring to monopolize the sale of buses and related products via a complex network of linked holding companies including National City Lines and Pacific City Lines. They were also indicted, but acquitted of conspiring to monopolize the ownership of these companies.

By the time of the 1973 oil crisis, controversial new testimony was presented to a United States Senate inquiry into the causes of the decline of streetcar systems in the US. This alleged that there was a wider conspiracyâ€"by GM in particularâ€"to destroy effective public transport systems in order to increase sales of automobiles and that this was implemented with great effect to the detriment of many cities.

Only a few US cities have surviving effective rail-based urban transport systems based on tram, metro, or elevated train; notable survivors include New York City, Newark, New Jersey, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Boston and Chicago. There is now general agreement that GM and other companies were indeed actively involved in a largely unpublicized program to purchase many streetcar systems and convert them to buses, which they often supplied. There is also acknowledgment that the Great Depression, the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935, labor unrest, market forces, rapidly increasing traffic congestion, taxation policies that favored private vehicle ownership, urban sprawl, and general enthusiasm for the automobile played a major or possibly more significant role. One author recently summed the situation up as follows: "Clearly, GM waged a war on electric traction. It was indeed an all out assault, but by no means the single reason for the failure of rapid transit. Also, it is just as clear that actions and in-actions by government contributed significantly to the elimination of electric traction.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_conspiracy

The demise of our streetcars were indeed connected to "The Great Streetcar Holocaust," which was engineered by 4 major players. General Motors, Standard Oil, Phillips Petroleum and Firestone all conspired to kill the traction companies nationwide. Our system was one of the early victims of this plot which started with Motor Transit Company, which was owned by National City Lines, which was owned by the conspirators.

Many streetcar and interurban (LRT) lines were owned by utility companies, and the highway lobby donated huge sums to make sure the big dog utilities got divided from the transportation firms. Just before Jacksonville Traction Company vanished forever, The Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935, an antitrust law was passed to sweep away any financial backing the streetcar companies still had. It was all downhill after the passage of that act.

http://www.metrojacksonville.com/forum/index.php/topic,5431.msg84910.html#msg84910