Ft McPherson Redevelopment Plan: I Was For It Before I Was Against It

I attended the meeting that is pictured in the news clip above.

I had heard it advertised on the local news. I was curious about the plans to transform the former Army fort into a residential space. I had assumed that the meeting would have the developers laying out their plans to the community and then receiving feedback and suggestions from them.

As I walked in the front door (I was late because East Point police could not tell me where the school was. My GPS couldn't find it because the name of the school is spelled differently than how it sounds) I saw Democratic State Senator Vincent Fort who came out of the meeting to retrieve some paperwork. Once I saw him I knew what kind of meeting I was stepping into.



Fort is a "community organizer" serving as a state senator. (Yeah - like the other guy from Illinois). I have watched his escapades for years as it relates to Grady Hospital, The GA Aquarium and other hot button issues related to "the poor and oppressed".

As I listened in to the audience full of local residents I was not surprised at the tone of the meeting. I heard "This plan is not reparations, but we'll take it".

All but one of the speakers had their roots in Homeless Advocacy, Organized Labor, and Job Retraining programs. Their theme was "You must fight to direct that which is going on inside of your community so that it actually benefits your community".

With McPherson presently having a perimeter fence and thus "in the area" but not "integrated within the community" their biggest fear was that it would be made into an island. The wealthy would use its highly desirable location (close to downtown, close to the airport, close to MARTA transit) as a means of developing an "island of wealth" that was disconnected from the rest of the community.

He drove home the notion that with the abundance of construction jobs that will be coming forth they needed to lean upon the developers to fund job training programs so that the residents in the area can get trained and be a part of the construction that is happening in their own community.

I have to honestly admit that upon listening to Senator Fort up until this point and his dogged attempts to drive the best deal for his constituents I said to myself "this man is an effective leader for his people" even though his people and I have markedly different political and economic philosophies.

The other speaker on stage who was not an activist was a White guy who sat on the initial board that developed the feasibility study for the land. He played himself as a "non-developer", having the people's interests in mind rather than the profiteer's interests.

I noted that Senator Fort kept comparing this development to that of Atlantic Station in downtown Atlanta. When the audience Q&A session started I raised my hand. I was going to ask if in fact he should compare Ft McPherson's plans to that of the "East Point Market Place" rather than Atlantic Station? Market Place has residential housing and a retail presence. It has become the entertainment center for young Black professionals in the area. I was going to ask him if he was satisfied that the project planners in that development integrated the community into their plans. Regardless - they seem to be very satisfied with the outcome. I didn't get a chance to ask the question because there were so many people who were before me.

I was stunned to listen to the exchange between a White homeless advocate and Senator Fort. There was a White guy standing off to the right of the audience. He asked the "non-Developer" guy who he was receiving his pay check from. He asked Fort why his percentage of homeless housing had changed to the current lower figure. Finally - a person who is TO THE LEFT OF Vincent Fort - accusing him of "selling out the little people". Fort had to tell the guy to get back in line. Everyone gets one question and he already got to ask his. "Show some respect for the rest of the people". (Wow. After all the times I saw this man get arrested and then dragged out of a building by the police - he is now asking someone else to obey?)

The plan consists of setting aside a percentage of the residences for homeless FAMILIES. The "non-developer" made the note that integrated housing is an effective strategy at dealing with many of the problems associated with the housing projects where too many poor people had been clustered together. I was amazed to hear that this is now an accepted policy even among the activist community. They had long fought the plans of the Atlanta Housing Authority to raze the housing projects and replace them with "mixed-income" developments. I was happy to see that they now agree that when too many people of a certain consciousness (that has been damaged by government social welfare policies) are clustered together - the resulting prevailing culture is a destructive one.

In essence their plan was to avoid building an "exclusive island" where the housing prices would be maximized. Instead they wanted to "spread the wealth and opportunity", allowing poor and lower middle class people "into the gates".

Fort stated his plan to obtain property tax relief for the poor residents both inside and outside of the development.

They also talked about a "local tax allocation district". I support this idea for any community seeking self determination. Effectively the local area imposes a tax upon itself. These funds are then used to fund projects in the immediate local area.


I BECAME AGAINST THE PLANS WHEN I LISTENED TO THE PEOPLE

I was in full support of the plan - UNTIL I started listening to the present citizens that live in the area.
From the mouths of assorted people:

• This zipcode has the highest rate of foreclosures and resulting abandoned housing rates in the metro area. What are you going to do about that? (Fort blamed this on Predatory Lending practices)
• "Who is going to maintain the place after it is built, to insure that the common areas are kept up? This is a problem right now in the community"
• We see an increase in violent crimes in our area right now. People are also breaking into these abandoned houses and stealing copper out of the walls. All of this is impacting our property values and our standard of living

After listening to this long line of grievances I was forced to ask myself: Why are these community leaders so focused defending against the development plans of Fort McPherson when they haven't even been "taking care of business" with what they have already?

Thus the major strategic flaw of the plan came to light:

Senator Fort has a conflict in his strategy. He wants to control this valuable, highly desirable piece of land, keeping it away from "rich people's exclusive use". Then he wants to suppress the property taxes collected upon the poor/middle income people. He said that taxation upon these people is destructive to their interests.

The community activists are so set against having rich people build an island in their neighborhood that they are unwilling to consider their strategic flaw. First of all in its present state the land is a "government island". In fact it produces no local taxes since these are government buildings.

The community activists by inserting their demands for affordable housing, thus lowering the property values they also lower the tax digest for the area. Clearly taxes are important to the area per the local tax on retail purchases that they seek.

The major misalignment, however, has to do with the large amount of vacant properties that already exist in the area outside of the fort. Why add MORE "low income housing" inside of the fort when you have such a large inventory of vacant housing in the area outside of the fort?

A MORE RATIONAL ALTERNATIVE THAT MAXIMIZES EVERYONE'S INTERESTS

I left the room thinking up a far more strategic and rational alternative to what I have heard put forth by the activist-centered people who were in the meeting.

There are several key concerns that I heard:

• The need for job training for construction jobs
• The need for affordable housing
• The need for a local tax digest to fund local projects
• The need to have the fort's development integrated into the community (ie: green space)

It seemed to me that it is the community activists that needed be a bit more open minded and indeed consider the needs of the entire community rather than hawkisly seeking to protect the valuable land that the fort will make available to them.

In my view they should continue with their job training plans. I have no doubt that they will use this as a leveraging chip as the developers seek to win their support. I support this strategy.

I also agree that they should set aside a portion of the park for green space. This should be opened to EVERYONE in the area, and not just people who live inside of the walls of the fort.

The point where I am in strong disagreement with them is with their residential housing plan. They are about to squander the intrinsic attractiveness of this area to the high income, young professional that is looking to reduce his commute time and have easier access to MARTA and the downtown cultural district.

If the activists were interested in maximizing their tax base they would allow expensive and moderately expensive housing within the fort and then develop a funding package which has the existing stock of housing that is presently vacant outside of the fort to be redeveloped and repopulated by the lower income and homeless family population that they presently plan to put inside of the fort.

Let's be honest - as I left the meeting and drove down nearby Campbellton Road I saw nearly every apartment complex, regardless of the income level with a SECURITY GATE. (As soon as I remember which phone I took these pictures with - I will post them). This talk about the fear of fences as barriers is preposterous. It is already in the area. The gates today are to "keep your thugs out of my complex." Is there really any difference if there are some class profiling rather than "thug profiling"?

If the activists could let go of their arrogance and stalwardness for one second and instead focus on their core needs they would see that these are: Housing and Tax Revenues

As much as I rag on progresives for seeking to pick the pockets of the rich people and the predicament they'd be in if they were "all by themselves" - why on Earth would they seek to enforce the "we must have integration" in the living spaces and thus risk the maximization of the taxation that would result if indeed housing was provided to those who are going to be taxed based on their property values.

Let me put it another way - How do you achieve the clear distinction in HOUSING VALUES (per the size of the house and the worth of the land) when the two types of properties are so close to each other? (These two types would be - market valued houses for the wealthy and then "government engineered housing" that allows poor people and homeless families to move in)

YOU CAN'T.

You have just blurred the distinction by which to tax in a bifurcated manner.

Thus by allowing the housing values to be maximized inside of the fort, opening the green space up to all winning some concessions from the developers in which funds from the McPherson development will be spread into the general community for the redevelopment of the properties and the reseeding of the people with needs into this area - the project has effectively maxized the interests of a larger group of people.

A few weeks ago I posted an article about how mixed income integration plans have not worked out as expected. If the activists proceed as they presently plan to - they will create the same conditions that the article that I posted described.

I hope that we have learned from the auto unions fate that there is a distinction between SHORT TERM, fully maximized demands and LONG TERM "best interets" that are sustainable. If your short term demands that you doggedly cleave to derail your long term interests then they were not in your "best interests".


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