Wednesday, July 15, 2015

Fishtown Zoning Meetings: part one

Preservation

A ten year Tax Abatement in the full context of any point of view is very relevant to new housing and business construction. Denying that it is not one of the highly exploited construction driving forces would be very short sighted. The continued building and demolition of the characteristic of Fishtown, as well as other neighborhoods, is steadily progressing, in my opinion,  the incentive for overly inflated stated property value and profit.
 I oppose this, specifically Fishtown in part, by the fact that people are being duped into thinking or may have bought a house alleged to be in Fishtown. This can be illustrated based by the understanding of neighbors from house listings. This includes exaggerated claims on the map of Fishtown.
The best local, in my opinion, view and understanding of this commentary is found in a published article in the Spirit Community Newspaper by K. Andrew Deffely on July 7, 2015: (Watch) Blurred Lines: A Discussion on Disputed Boundaries and That Awful “Port Fishington” Nonsense. ( http://spiritnews.org/articles/watch-blurred-lines-a-discussion-on-disputed-boundaries-and-that-awful-port-fishington-nonsense/ )
It is sad that Fishtown does not have any established community organization who's founding documented purpose did not include activism for the whole characteristic of Fishtown, most  notable, preservation. It's not difficult to realistically imagine what such a focus with all its many talented members could do compared to what a handful of dedicated people accomplished in regard to St Laurentius' church. This  also includes other unofficial  historic or historically designated structures, landmarks and public land aside from The Friends of Penn Treaty Park
This, in particular, should never be viewed as a fault or short coming of the Fishtown Neighbors Association and other surrounding registered civic organizations . It is a new multiple neighborhood awareness that recently surfaced with clarity. It is something that the neighbors need to strongly advocate for their civic organizations to incorporate into their designated purpose.
Neighbors, most of all, need to involve themselves into these civic organizations to make it happen and keep it efficiently happening  as an on-going effort.
Without it, neighborhoods such as Fishtown, surrender their community strength and are at the whim of profit motive developers. This, in my view, also includes refusing most, if not all, construction variances or alleged hardships that are created by the developers by unanimously forcing them to build by right.
My gravest concern is that older residents seeming tend not to participate and that the younger ones lack patience and foresight to exercise proactive inclusive judgement when improving the appearance and characteristic of the community.

All neighborhoods such as Fishtown need to rally, arouse for action, and join a common cause to officially preserve significant sites of its history and characteristic.
Here are some examples.








point of view opinion and photos by roman blazic_all rights reserved   

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