Fwd: Re cases 2022NL-001-001 and 2022HLI-001-001 - 518 Russell Street

[Alice Forrester]

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Peter D Greaves <peter....@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, May 2, 2022 at 10:20 AM
Subject: Re cases 2022NL-001-001 and 2022HLI-001-001 - 518 Russell Street
To: <planni...@nashville.gov>, <Planning.Co...@nashville.gov>, Kempf, Lucy (Planning) <lucy....@nashville.gov>
CC: Alice Forrester <agforr...@gmail.com>

Dear planning staff and commissioners.

On behalf of the Historic Edgefield Neighbors Association (HEN) I would like to submit the following materials for your consideration as you review these 2 cases. If you need any clarification ro wish to discuss any of this with us please let me know and we will gladly meet with the staff.

While HEN is not taking a firm position for or against the proposal but rather presenting data, a summary of the sentiment from both immediate neighbors and the broader neighborhood would be some cautious support for the idea of the hotel from immediate neighbors (more opposition for the broader neighborhood), but in general stronger opposition to the proposal for an event center from the entire neighborhood. Concerns raised include:

• Parking and traffic in general, given that the Tulip Street Church has no existing parking lots.
• The frequency of and lack of clarity around the size of events
• The lack of plans and signed contracts to cover parking, including shuttle or valet services to keep traffic and parking on the street down.
• Disruption during construction
• Noise control
• How to address issues as they were occurring
• Traffic control at events and rideshare traffic
• Noise pollution, and the potential for live music
• Light pollution
• Alley traffic and blockage due to construction and event deliveries, and
• The number of organizations who already have events that impact the neighborhood. 

If I could highlight one major theme, it is the impact of having another event center within a block of an existing one (East Ivy) in a residential area. While East Ivy is not currently active, we all recognize that it easily could be so in the future.

That coupled with events such as church services for two churches, weddings, funerals, the Farmer's Market, Titan's and stadium events, the East Park Community Center, and East Park events, raise neighborhood concerns about the impact to the neighborhood of the potential sheer numbers of events.
In summary, what we have clearly heard from both close neighbors and the broader Edgefield community is opposition to the event center, and concerns over traffic, parking, and the impact of another event center to the community, while simultaneously supporting the renovation of the buildings.

If approval is granted at all, residents would like to see, among other conditions
• A limit on both the numbers and size of events
• Limits on hours
• A hard requirement that The Tulip have dedicated hotel parking; and
• A requirement to maintain contracts to cover parking at an offsite location for all events.

The data included here reflect an online survey with 69 responses from Edgefield Residents, and another 16 from East Nashville and surrounding areas, as well as a meeting held at The Tulip, emails from residents, comments from the Facebook page  and one-on-one conversations.

Summary data from the survey is below. Immediate neighbors are those in the 500 and 600 blocks of Fatherland and Russell. Please note these are percentages not numbers, and since a scale of 1 to 5 was used, the responses with a 3 are left out as they are effectively neutral, for example on the question of the event center 76% of Edgefield Residents opposed it, 16% supported it and 8% were neutral, whereas for the question of the hotel 3 out of 10 immediate neighbors supported it (30%), 1 opposed it (10%) and 6 were neutral. The immediate neighbour numbers are included in the numbers for the whole of Edgefield.

As we have had some complaints from neighbours about non-compliance of The Russell (same developer) and have been working with them to try and get those resolved, we also included some questions on perceptions of The Russel and its benefit to Edgefield. In this context immediate neighbours are neighbours of The Russell.

	All Responses		Edgefield		Immediate Neighbors
The Project	Support	Oppose	Support	Oppose	Support	Oppose
Hotel	24	46	21	45	30	10
Event Center	11	70	16	76	10	60
Concerns	Concerned	Unconcerned	Concerned	Unconcerned	Concerned	Unconcerned
Traffic and congestion	72	15	76	14	70	30
Parking	80	11	84	11	80	20
Noise	55	19	58	18	30	20
Behavior	49	24	52	26	30	30
Conditions not being met	66	27	68	24	50	40
Being able to address issues	68	14	70	11	60	30
Precedent	68	14	70	13	50	30
Benefits	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	No
Restoration	80	8	79	7	100	0
New event center in the area	24	60	16	66	10	50
Edgefield Visibility	48	20	13	53	10	30
The Russell	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	No
Has it been a benefit	28	23	26	24	10	10
Has it created issues	42	20	48	17	30	20
Did they meet conditions	13	38	11	44	20	40

Please find attached a more comprehensive summary of the data we have gathered, as well as verbatim the comments entered by respondents to the online survey The summary will be presented by HEN at the Planning Commission meeting on June 9th.

The survey itself can be viewed or completed here: https://docs.google.com/.../1FAIpQLSeUOzIw7QkMWQ.../viewform

I realize there is a lot of information here, so if you have any questions, clarification or simply wish to discuss the data, please feel free to reach out to us.

Regards

Peter Greaves

Development Chair, HEN

615 354-3536

 

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Alice G. Forrester

Nashville TN USA

NonDual Healer

www.thecenterforillumination.com

agforr...@gmail.com