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From an industrial standpoint, why do we have to clear a space to put up another office etc. while the old mills stand vacant? now we lose some wilderness and habitat and still have the damn abandoned mill?
That is one I can answer. Those old mills were built at a time when heat was dirt cheap. With heating costs easily 20 times what they were, heating those old buildings is prohibitively expensive. The next logical question is, well why not rip out the old heating system and put in modern insulation? The answer is you can, but by the time you replace the entire infrastructure you are financially better off just starting from scratch with new construction.
That is one I can answer. Those old mills were built at a time when heat was dirt cheap. With heating costs easily 20 times what they were, heating those old buildings is prohibitively expensive. The next logical question is, well why not rip out the old heating system and put in modern insulation? The answer is you can, but by the time you replace the entire infrastructure you are financially better off just starting from scratch with new construction.
Completely understood, my nonsensical utopian point was more around the fact that it is too bad local/state/federal governments can't find a way to provide incentives to go through that rehab process vs. knocking down forests and digging up open space based on the simple economics you mentioned. At the end of the day, based on pure economics we end up with less forests, less open fields, new buildings and still have old abandoned sites no one wants to touch as the numbers don't work at all.
Whiel I am in the camp of "eveywhere does change over time" we don't all have to be dumbasses about how we put "change" into action.
I get that people will move in and out of an area and require potentially new services etc. why do we always have to destroy open land for the new homes, new businesses etc.? I wish there was a way to properly provide and incentive to purchase an existing older home or run down property and either rehab it or level it and rebuild on the same existing site. While that still changes the landscape from old homes to newer homes, if there is a need for 10 new homes why does it have to come at the expense of the open field? or the woods we hunt etc.?
From an industrial standpoint, why do we have to clear a space to put up another office etc. while the old mills stand vacant? now we lose some wilderness and habitat and still have the damn abandoned mill?
Granted this is a utopian approach which is not my normal paradigm but still......I am so sick of seeing good open land turn into another 4 bed 2.5 bath cookie cutter box......was there not another home that could have been purchased?
the problem is that it costs a builder less to start with an acre of forest than an existing site with a crap home on it......, add in the tear down and removal costs, teh environmental hoops you have to jump through and it is an obvious decision......
Fustercluck.....
I've said the same thing so many times. What is with people and their everything has to be built new mentality? A teardown in a good area will give the homeowner 'new' and preserve open land, and by extension, animal habitats.
VT actually had much lower taxes before the outsiders began moving in. We had a smaller, less intrusive government that could control its spending then. VT was never wealthy but it was affordable.
Out of curiosity, have you looked into the meteoric rise in school taxes? It has plenty to do with residents passing school budget after school budget because "it's for the kids! " I don't know how working families in gold districts can afford to live a decent life.
I don't think it's about exclusivity. I think it is about not wanting the city's facilities and amenities to be ruined by people who are trash and come in, not caring about how they tear things up, leave trash and debris around and cause plenty of other problems, like getting drunk, getting in fights, etc.
To be honest, I think that they have the right idea. I remember when I went to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida once, you couldn't access the beach unless you owned or was a guest of someone who owned a beach-front condo and the hotels and restaurants would not let you trespass on their property to get to the beach either. There were public access spots, but they were few and far between. If I had paid $250,000 for a condo, the last thing I would like to see and hear is a bunch of doped up hooligans playing their stupid rap music 100 feet from my balcony. Sorry. I stand with the folks in the article. They just want their town to be nice, and to stay nice.
20yrsinBranson
These are good points. Here the public beaches attract a wide variety of people -- a lot urban dwellers and suburban poor who blast rap and reggaeton; their language is rife with cursing. There's attitude problems, machismo, litter, beer drinking and pot smoking. A family could find a space away from the aforementioned, but it gets crowded and sooner or later you've got a reggaeton blaring boombox nearby, drowning out the waves, gulls, and children's laughter.
The local Towns have beaches which are open only to taxpaying Town residents. They're smaller and have family -oriented amusements and such.
Reading the OP's article, toward the end there was mention that the one park had taken a beating prior to passes being issued. How much more should the taxpayers have to pay to maintain a park for nontaxpaying, nonresidents to use?
One thing we have here is a beach we can 4 wheel on. Passes are VERY limited and applicants have to follow every rule. All Taxpayers in Suffolk County pay for this beach, but if everyone were allowed to use it, this sensitive area would be destroyed. We accept this and are happy as a clam if we score a seasonal permit.
That is one I can answer. Those old mills were built at a time when heat was dirt cheap. With heating costs easily 20 times what they were, heating those old buildings is prohibitively expensive. The next logical question is, well why not rip out the old heating system and put in modern insulation? The answer is you can, but by the time you replace the entire infrastructure you are financially better off just starting from scratch with new construction.
The mill in Springfield was retrofitted for office space. The area's visual history has been preserved and, no, the entire infrastructure didn't require replacement. One thing about the old mills and factories is that the interiors are rather stark to begin with.
It can be done, but the parties need vision to see beyond the building in disrepair.
The mill in Springfield was retrofitted for office space. The area's visual history has been preserved and, no, the entire infrastructure didn't require replacement. One thing about the old mills and factories is that the interiors are rather stark to begin with.
It can be done, but the parties need vision to see beyond the building in disrepair.
ONE mill out of several was rehabbed and not all of it was turned into office space.
The only party who could afford it was the hospital with its deep pockets to create a clinic, and much of the space was left open to provide a hall for art exhibits and events. As I recall this was also one of the many properties which had a brownfield problem which I forgot to mention as a factor in my previous post.
Getting rid of the brownfields is a slow process because of the cost involved. Grants are award one at a time to clean up part of the building while the rest waits for the next grant cycle.
But frankly, how much office space does a town need? Office are nice, but at some point someone has to make something. We can't all just sell each other insurance and expect the economy to work.
ONE mill out of several was rehabbed and not all of it was turned into office space.
The only party who could afford it was the hospital with its deep pockets to create a clinic, and much of the space was left open to provide a hall for art exhibits and events. As I recall this was also one of the many properties which had a brownfield problem which I forgot to mention as a factor in my previous post.
Getting rid of the brownfields is a slow process because of the cost involved. Grants are award one at a time to clean up part of the building while the rest waits for the next grant cycle.
But frankly, how much office space does a town need? Office are nice, but at some point someone has to make something. We can't all just sell each other insurance and expect the economy to work.
Had the mill been torn down, the brownfield issue would still be there.
From what I have been reading, with the grants, it was less expensive to rehab the old mill than to build new.
What is better? Rehabbing the mill, or allowing it to continue to moulder while developers choose a new, undeveloped site to erect the health center/art gallery/what-have-you on -- making Springfield look even more hodge-podge?
Elsewhere in and industrial park in N.Springfield, Black River Produce is expanding meat processing which will create more jobs. That's not something one would want plotzed in the middle of town, is it?
The mill has vacancies -- it is up to the developer and Springfield to woo clients to the facility. With current zoning (I am not familiar with that part of town) is manufacturing currently a permitted use? Would the noise of a manufacturing facility potentially disrupt the health center?
The old Fellow Gear Shaper building obviously had been a manufacturing facility, but was not rehabbed to create another manufacturing facility. Part of it is now the clinic and part is a "Great Hall."
Prior to the rehab the owner was trying to get tenants of any kind, including those involved with manufacturing. The building was in rough shape is all I can say. It was acceptable for cold storage of items that could withstand getting wet from roof leaks but that was about it. While I am very glad to see this particular building brought back to life, I think it deserves emphasis that grant money was necessary to make it economically feasible. Not that I object to that use of taxpayer money; the alternative would have been to have this huge rotting shell of a building while the hospital built the clinic who-knows-where. However I do not consider it comaprable to the case of a potential business coming in and viewing on of the old machine tool buildings and rehabbing it. I don't know what the building is zoned for, but there is heavy manufacturing going on in the old VT Research building nearby.
Black River is in a building that never had anything to do with manufacturing. Food processing was always separate. As far as I know Black River moved into the old Ben and Jerry's, which was in the old Idlenot dairy building. It's natural that they would look to exapnd in the North Springfield Industrial park, which never had the really dirty manufacturing that went on in the downtown.
If it were up to me I would have put an industrial park closer to I-91. The location in North Springfield forces traffic for shipping and deliveries through the downtown and on that one road to North Springfield. So frankly it would almost be better to have industry downtown to reduce truck traffic that just slogs through and clogs up the single road anyway.
Rural North Alabama is very much like the way that Vermont used to be. It even has a single tiny community ski slope. The trend along the Eastern states seems to be to make more things off-limits or pay for access. A photographer friend was in the southern part of the state a few weeks back trying to get a sunrise shot at a reservoir out in the boonies, only to be confronted with barbed wire and an armed fellow warning him that it was a secure site by edict of Homeland Security.
I remember a Vermont when a working man could afford to go to a restaurant for lunch without coming up short for rent. Last time I was in the Stowe/Waterbury area, about the only restaurant that was still affordable was the Park down by the train station. Around here, there are still a number of places with "meat and two." There is also REAL farming going on, just like there used to be all over Vermont. Our traffic jams where we live are typically John Deere, not out of state plates.
So Ben and Jerry's isn't providing well paying jobs for everyone in the state?
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