The Downtown Plan: It's All Politics, Baby

Style Weekly's Amy Beigelsen lands a harder hitting piece on perceived conflicts of interest on Richmond's Planning Commission than her colleague at the Times-Dispatch delivered this morning. Both pieces have strong merit -- the TD's Kiran Krishnamurthy lands the fair-and-balanced award for carving out equal space for critics and defenders of commision chair Bob Mills. Biegelsen's piece manages to be gutsier and more direct.

The gist of both stories? It is a conflict-of-interest for Mills, whose architectural firm has a significant financial stake in VCU's own master planning autonomy, to be publicly going to bat for VCU during public commission hearings on Richmond's proposed Downtown Plan?

While the TD left the door open on the issue, Style's Biegelsen lets it slam.

“Fundamentally, the City of Richmond’s Downtown Master Plan has no business ‘sticking its nose’ in the business of the Commonwealth or VCU,” Mills writes in his review comments of the plan, adding that the state and VCU “are the best friends the City could have ever asked for.”

Good friends of Commonwealth Architects, too. In addition to work for VCU, Mills’ firm is working on two state projects: a renovation of the Washington Building on the southeast corner of Capitol Square and the design for a new state office building between Eighth and Ninth streets on Broad Street — the one that replaces the former Murphy Hotel, which came down against the wishes of preservationists.

Mills “is an architect who does business with the state,” says David Herring, executive director of the Alliance to Conserve Old Richmond Neighborhoods. “I’m not going to say it’s an out-and-out conflict, but how do you honestly recuse yourself from those kinds of decisions?”

Rachel Flynn, Richmond’s director of community development who oversaw the drafting of the new downtown plan, raises similar questions.

“If I were in that position, I don’t think I’d be commenting on the [state] and VCU piece, because it is hard to have two masters,” she says.

Piece by piece, Richmond's Downtown Plan is being chiseled away by politicians and policymakers more interested in preserving the status quo and the financial autonomy of their allies than they are in building on a vision established by a reasonably large swath of downtown Richmond's constituents.

The plan's vision for what consultant Victor Dover calls Richmond's "great, wet Central Park" is coming under fire from developers interested in layering block after block of prime James River real estate with condominiums. (Note to City Council: The sub-prime market just collapsed in on itself. The over-saturated condo market is hot on its heels.)

The plan's attempts to maintain what's left of Richmond's architectural history and the aesthetic integrity of downtown's core are being nibbled away at by economic free will architects who suggest that attempts to maintain and rebuild the visual fabric might upset VCU and the Commonwealth -- the city's two largest landowners whose properties contribute next-to-nothing to the tax rolls.

Maybe strategic consultant Jim Crupi had it right in 1992 when his first report on Richmond stated that:

The community resembles a bicycle wheel turned on its side - a continuous cash circle where people contribute to each other’s individual projects. The wheel,however, is not on the road and heading in any direction.

Comments

[tyrone]

Land planning, in general, is dance of government regulation and private property rights. Public input is valuable, and can help the government understand what citizens want. However, public input is not a licence to tell other people what they can and cannot do with their property. Real estate includes a "bundle of rights"; when government takes some of those rights, it must compensate the owner - that is the law. Property owners have reason to be concerned when a government plan takes property rights from them - without compensation. It's easy to support this government taking as long as it is somebody else's proeprty rights being taken. It's easy to support taking rights from Ethyl, because it's a big mean greedy "corporation". But Ethyl is owned by thousands and thousands of individuals, just like us, just like our parents and grandparents. Ethyl officers have a duty to maximize value for these individuals. I'm not a shareholder, but if I was, I would want to know why the local government thought it could, with the swipe of a pen, reduce the value of my ownership by taking property rights. The same goes for the VCU hospital. Architectural tastes differ: some people love the VCU hospital; some could not care less. But why should you or I pretend to think we know what is best for that building? It is the hospital that knows what is best. It is a simple concept. Bob Mills may have upset some people when he stated that VCU can tear down the building it if wants to, but the fact of the matter is, VCU already has a permit to tear it down. He is merely stating a fact; the media (which includes blogs) does a disservice when it presents this situation from just one angle, without exploring all of the facts, and does so with such a mean-spirited attitude. Richmond is damn lucky to have Bob Mills on the planning commission. He doesn't get paid for it. He doesn't get any business because of it. He does it because he cares. Mills has more expereience than probably anybody else in this city when it comes to re-using old buildings. Richmond's biggest re-use project ever is the Miller & Rhoades / Hilton project - valued at 100 million dollars. Mills' firm drew those plans. His knowledge and experience are invaluable, and I am glad he had the courage to speak up. Now, about the master plan idea of buiilding buildings on top of the interstate...

[Scott Burger]

I support the Downtown Master Plan and its public process, but...AGAIN..what good is a downtown master plan that VCU and other powerful entities can violate at will? Thank you, John, Syle, and TImes Dispatch for finally asking these questions about disclosure and conflicts of interest. Government should govern, and corporations should butt out!

[Joanne]

I agree with Andrew. I am excited about the idea of the master plan, public discourse, road map to Richmond's future, etc. However, it leaves me queasy when I see private land being "designated" by our government. It leaves me even queasier when it is apparent the property owners were not on board for this "designation" ...

[Jennifer Young]

Apparently the Dept. of Community Development saw value in the community's input or it wouldn't have held the charette. The community certainly saw value in the opportunity or there wouldn't have been such a large turnout. The future of the city is the concern of all citizens; property owners, yes, but also taxpayers and those who "live, work and play" in the city. In the bigger picture, having a vibrant, thriving, beautifully designed city that is supported by the community ultimately "does good" for everyone, including businesses and property owners.

[John]

I'm all for Bob Mills or Beverly Lacy or Kathy Graziano or any member of the Planning Commission working to ensure that all stakeholders in this process have a voice and are treated fairly. But I'm also for calling a spade a spade. The issue here is that Mills' architectural firm is currently working on significant projects for VCU and others that are impacted by the plan, and he has an opportunity to financially benefit from changes in the plan -- that is about as direct a conflict-of-interest as you can deliver. If Mills were simply an architect actively engaged in influencing this plan, more power to him. And if he were a commission member actively engaged in an attempt to make this the best possible plan, amen. But when he does both simultaneously, I have issues. That has nothing to do with "go-gooder" bureaucrats or issues of public policy trumping private ownership.

[Andrew Stegmaier]

"City Planning", when it takes the form of a Grand Visionary Master Plan, inevitably becomes a process of some people sticking their nose in other people's property and business. When a bureaucrat with a map and a pen can take away your right to use your property as you wish in the name of her idea of "the public good," you deserve a voice. The true stakeholders in the debate over what should happen to downtown are the property owners--everyone else can easily walk away without a significant loss. If Bob Mills is using his position on the Commission to ensure that the most significant stakeholder is being treated fairly, more power to him. It is conceivable that a greater emphasis on historic preservation and shared amenities might help the owners make better use of their investments, But the details of any such plan ought to be worked out by mutual agreement between the actual stakeholders--not any random bureaucrat or do-gooder.