I was wondering if anyone had heard what was discussed at the planning board meeting about the substation. The last I have heard is that they are "willing" to move it back from S Washington Ave 25 feet. BWL has got a-hold of this idea and just can't give it up. If you like the garden you should stop by right now as many spring annuals are in bloom, it's really just beautiful, it's just a few steps from the traffic but it feels peaceful and quiet when stepping down into the little garden.
I still hope they are able to stop this, but the BWL is announcing that they'll move the old house at the site, and it sounds like to MLK between Hillsdale and Lenawee where Union Missionary Baptist used to be in the Renaissance Neighborhood. It's a very prominent site going north up MLK.
lol, I'm now seeing from WLNS that Bernero has sweetned the deal which would add 20-additional units at the site on MLK along with moving the house so that if you still oppose the substation at the gardens you're opposing affordable housing. Man, he plays hardball. lol
The plan now includes selling the Scott Center house to Habitat for Humanity for $1 and then the city would transfer the land at MLK to Habitat to build on also for $1. The house would be turned into a multi-family building and its style kept (they'd remove the ugly siding); the additional units would reflect the Tudor style of the house and would be condo-style.
I thought it was kind of odd that the mayor had this press conference like it was all a done deal. I guess that's his "m-o". They still have a few steps to go before it all happens. Hopefully I will be living an another neighborhood be the time the substation is built. It will be so sad to see. It was kind of ingenuous of the mayor to also say no one uses that park or goes to the garden. Well take a look at how nicely the gardens are attended to find evidence that someone does indeed go to the gardens. I am not sure parkland's worth should judged by how many people use it today. There are plans for a large housing development at St Joe. and S Washington and also for a hotel at MalcolmX and Washington which means there may soon be a lot more people around who may visit the park. Now it seems there is even more money for goodies. Let's build the new walkways to the park, let's build new housing on MLK do all those things, and leave the garden where it is.
From what I understand, a lot of electrical runs underground from Eckert to downtown and it happens to run directly under this park. Moving the substation a half mile east or west adds millions of dollars to the job because they would have to reroute the underground electrical.
So..maybe they should find a place north or south of the location instead?
Yep, though, there is no way the city would allow this north of the freeway. We'd discussed earlier that there is literally a large GM parking lot directly to the south of and adjacent the gardens. In fact, the BWL has an existing pump station in the parking lot, currently. They came up with what appears to be a bogus excuse for why they couldn't use the site. There is no way that a little cajoling from the city couldn't get the BWL the land for a very cheap price or maybe even for free.
If Bernero put half the energy trying to get this thing on the GM lot, that he's put into destroying the Scott sunken gardens, we could probably have both a new substation and a revitalized gardens. This honestly seems like a no-brainer. GM gets some good press for saving the gardens, BWL gets their new substation, and the Scott Gardens remains untouched. Everybody wins.
I like that solution, put it where it should be in the already paved over lot to the south west. Like I have already said all of these added attractions are going to cost millions, yet they don't have money to procure more appropriate land.
I may be wrong but didn't the woman who is the president of GM spend time in Lansing, or have some Lansing connection? If so perhaps she would the person who could change this whole plan. I just can not believe that GM is so against siting a substation there that provides power to their factory. Have we ever heard from anyone at GM about this? I am going to give writing to them a try, I will also include a plea to do something with the Olds Administration Buildings. I could see a satellite campus for a university or GMI maybe. I drive by often as a sort cut to S. Washington and up close they look really sad.
It seems like the last hope for the garden is the city council, and it would seem at least a couple of them want a vote of the people. The "we know best" attitude by the people from the BWL in very annoying and wrong, they work for us, they are a department of the city of Lansing, and might want to be humble and listen to the people who pay them. They seem to delight in a "I told you so" when trees fall or a sub station flips off and causes a power outage. If I had an one hundred year old tree in front of my house I would want them to be as conservative as possible when trimming. Some of the hack jobs I have seen around town are really sad to see. Yes they often fill back in etc. but they really look bad now and one wonders why don't they just cut the whole thing down. One way to avoid this might be to put utilities underground on heavily wooded streets. Not every street is has hundred year old trees.
To me, more important than the issue of the garden itself is that they're choosing to put a substation on an important corner at the transition from downtown to REO Town which also happens to be riverfront property. I'm just going to hope that the substation is relatively short-lived and is redeveloped as apartments or a hotel or something. I really don't even like having the park there, I think the corner parcel would better off developed regardless, but a substation is unacceptable.
I've always wanted to see the BWL put together a plan to bury all utilities. It'd be an expensive long term plan, spanning decades, but it's something I think has to be done eventually.
I've always wanted to see the utilities buried too. It would be expensive, but I feel that the money saved from outages would more than make up from it in the end. I also think that it looks horrible having wires everywhere so that's another reason to bury them.
I lived on a street [lane] that had underground utilities, and it did look nice and there was never any trouble from the wild east coast weather. However it was just one of a few streets in town that had underground utilities so while our trees were safe, the lights still went out all the time because of weather and people crashing into above ground poles. It does seem reasonable to bury the wires at least on residential streets. I don't know how much the recent ice storms, wind storms, and etc. cost both the BWL and our urban forest, but that sum could have been spent proactively by putting the wires underground before the next storm. Of course there are different maintenance issues with underground, but I think in the long run there are less problems, and the cost would be recovered at the next storm.
Comments
lol, I'm now seeing from WLNS that Bernero has sweetned the deal which would add 20-additional units at the site on MLK along with moving the house so that if you still oppose the substation at the gardens you're opposing affordable housing. Man, he plays hardball. lol
The plan now includes selling the Scott Center house to Habitat for Humanity for $1 and then the city would transfer the land at MLK to Habitat to build on also for $1. The house would be turned into a multi-family building and its style kept (they'd remove the ugly siding); the additional units would reflect the Tudor style of the house and would be condo-style.
So..maybe they should find a place north or south of the location instead?
If Bernero put half the energy trying to get this thing on the GM lot, that he's put into destroying the Scott sunken gardens, we could probably have both a new substation and a revitalized gardens. This honestly seems like a no-brainer. GM gets some good press for saving the gardens, BWL gets their new substation, and the Scott Gardens remains untouched. Everybody wins.
I may be wrong but didn't the woman who is the president of GM spend time in Lansing, or have some Lansing connection? If so perhaps she would the person who could change this whole plan. I just can not believe that GM is so against siting a substation there that provides power to their factory. Have we ever heard from anyone at GM about this? I am going to give writing to them a try, I will also include a plea to do something with the Olds Administration Buildings. I could see a satellite campus for a university or GMI maybe. I drive by often as a sort cut to S. Washington and up close they look really sad.
I've always wanted to see the BWL put together a plan to bury all utilities. It'd be an expensive long term plan, spanning decades, but it's something I think has to be done eventually.