blue back. i HATE it. i think it was vile the town turned over MILLIONS of dollors for this development. i think it will bring tons of traffic into town (tons MORE traffic that is). tons more idiots with their giant idiotic suvs. i hate going into the center now. it's full of those being seen and wanting to be seen. back in the day, it was a WONDERFUL place. now, the parking is bad, the crowds are bad, the stores are mostly unafforable (with a few exceptions). i will give ya, the restaurants are GOOD plus there's always sit-n-knit. a great yarn store i frequent
any way, you voted for it, now you got it (well are getting it)
Blue Back: Make It Affordable
Rick Green
October 31 2006 You can't just suddenly tell the developers of Blue Back Square to make changes and add affordable housing to the luxurious urban neighborhood now under construction in West Hartford Center.Then again, why not?The town screwed up big time when it failed to require affordable housing in the massive downtown redevelopment, a more than $160 million project that will make Blue Back a shining example in a state just waking up to the dangers of poorly planned overdevelopment.Now the Blue Back developers are coming back to the town for some revisions in the half-completed project. It's time to fix a mistake and remind everyone that the days of West Farms-style sprawl are over.Sure there's a lot of private money behind Blue Back, but the town of West Hartford is also a big partner in this groundbreaking "smart growth" project, selling a choice public parcel and assisting in the financing of some of the compact mixed-use development. "There's a unique opportunity for a town to ask the developers to reconsider a plan for one that considers addressing housing affordability" said Diane Randall, director of Partnership for Strong Communities in Hartford. "There is a public interest in this - assuring that people who work in the town can afford to live there.""We've got to help people get over the idea that affordable means housing for people who have no jobs," Randall told me..........
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2 comments:
While I appreciate that the market for the originally intended condominiums has cooled—and that a new plan proposed by BBS Development may be worthy of consideration—we should all keep in mind two tacit conditions that West Hartford citizens relied upon when we went to the polls to approve this Project:
(1) Maximize the assessed value of the residential property at stake in this Project. West Hartford taxpayers were promised that the additional tax revenues from this Project would not only pay for any necessary infrastructure improvements, but that this Project would result in residential tax relief (by providing a net gain in tax proceeds). Agreeing to any changes at this late date that don’t strive to maximize the assessed value of this Project would be counter to this agreement with the taxpayers of West Hartford (many of whom are already unhappy with the upcoming shift in tax burden from commercial to residential properties).
(2) Do not exacerbate the problem of overcrowding in the West Harford schools. If this Project had gone to the polls with the understanding that the residential component of this Project would aggravate the problem of large class sizes in our schools, we all know it would have NEVER been approved by West Hartford citizens.
Although the goal of promoting an economically diverse residential community might appeal to those more concerned about being politically-correct than committed to optimizing the educational opportunities for West Hartford children, adding an affordable housing component to this Project at this late date would be a fundamental violation of the terms under which West Hartford citizens agreed to support this Project in the first place. Not only would affordable housing fail to maximize the economic potential of this very valuable property, it would unavoidably lead to the influx of a higher number of new students into the West Hartford public school system than the current plan.
In response to those who claim that BlueBack needs an affordable housing element to appease their utopian vision for a “better” society, I propose the same approach that my family will be relying upon to enjoy the many benefits of the BlueBack Project—it’s called a bus ticket on one of the five Farmington Avenue bus lines.
i personally could give a flying f**k about being politically correct.
i think everyone in america should speak english. at the same time, i think ANYONE from mexico or cuba should be allowed in (if they are not criminals that is)
we ALL know west hartford is NEVER going to allow ANY sort of lower income housing at blue back OR ANYWHERE
i would
my father got his house assesment the other day (i grew up here but i rent now. he has lived in the same house for MANY years). the worth DOUBLED. if his taxes remain the same he can NOT pay his tax bills. i'll tell you that much
i posted this article but i really don't care about the housing. what i care about is the extra people in town. i don't want them here. i don't want who is ALREADY here with their hummers or their other types of suv s and their designer dogs hanging out in the center.
i'm ranting now but i do want to tell you how impressed i am with YOUR words. how articulate you are.
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