organsnyder

Don't forget Priority. That campus is bursting at the seams, and there would definitely be advantages to having them be colocated.

Looking at a satellite view, the south side of 28th looks to be constrained by Little Plaster Creek and associated wetlands. Though for the sake of the new hotel I hope they fill in the car-sized potholes in the access drive.

If all of the people that use the Garfield Nature Center as an off-leash "dog park" went there instead, it would see plenty of use. My kids are afraid to go into the nature center because of all of the loose dogs.

I'm not sure the durability will play out as you describe. From what I've heard, EV batteries tend to have quite long lifespans (especially if they have proper thermal management, which is more common now), and they tend to wear out in predictable, linear ways. A 15-year-old EV that gets 150 miles instead of 300 would be preferable (to me, at least) over a 15-year-old gas vehicle that has less predictable failure modes.

We're definitely not a "tech town," at least not like a Silicon Valley, Seattle, or Ann Arbor. There are a couple of decent-sized tech-specific employers, but not many; most tech jobs are within non-tech organizations (Spectrum, Amway, Gordon Foods, Dematic, Wolverine, etc.). Those are still good jobs (at least many of them) and contribute to the overall vitality of the area, but it is a very different feel and attracts a different sort of worker—which is both good (more diversity, pragmatism, and humility) and bad (less focus on skills development).

I was in middle school in the mid-90s, and grew up in a near-DT neighborhood on the SE side. But I remember only a handful of times from childhood actually going downtown for anything (including one time to City Center [Mackie's World predecessor]); there simply wasn't a lot to do there. So, at least for me, downtown developments (especially pre-arena) aren't very prominent in my memory.

That's a neat picture—astonishing how different DT is today. Wikipedia says that the Plaza Towers reskinning was from 1995-97, so 1996 seems right. The arena opened in October of 1996, and it definitely looks close to complete in this photo.

TGTGIFIG

Just because one TV was showing footage of a crane doesn't mean you get to count it twice.

Yup, that one is AT&T's: https://inspections.grcity.us/CitizenAccess/Cap/CapDetail.aspx?Module=Permits&TabName=Permits&capID1=19CAP&capID2=00000&capID3=00213&agencyCode=GRANDRAPIDS&IsToShowInspection=

I can understand why the neighbors wouldn't want their backyard woods replaced with an apartment complex. But you can never rely on land you don't own.

My guess is Whitmer has no intention of getting what she's asking for. Make an absurdly high (to some people, at least) starting proposal, and give the Republicans the ability to claim victory by "negotiating" it down. Not a bad strategy, IMHO.

Interesting. I wonder what they're doing with the business. AFAIK, it's still open, and that's their only location (since the smaller downtown location closed last year). Hmm... from the listing:

Yo, I heard you like cranes...

We already have an EV surcharge. I'd like to see that repealed (though I have a selfish reason for that—it'd save me some money on our PHEV minivan registration renewal). It really comes down to what taxes are intended to accomplish: solely to raise money, or also to influence behavior? Of course, it's really impossible to avoid influencing behavior, so we need to decide what sort of behavior we want to incentivize. I see increased EV adoption as a benefit, even if it does force us to come up with more creative road funding schemes down the road (I think EVs will remain a niche enough market segment in Michigan that we can wait until the next round of road funding battles). And gas consumption has other externalized costs—CO2, affects on public health, etc.—that we should be addressing. Yes, an increase to the gas tax will be harder for poor people to avoid. But that's true of just about any tax: wealthy people are more able to adapt to avoid a higher tax burden, whether that's by purchasing a more fuel-efficient vehicle, setting up a living trust to avoid probate costs, offshore bank accounts... Doubling the EITC is a good start, but we could do more to make our tax structure more equitable, in general.

So they... buy other businesses? Presumably they also have to operate them?

Spectrum employees account for over 1/3 of the respondents, but only 12% of respondents say their employer provides a bus pass. Spectrum has some educating to do.

Yet the poison pill remains:

Here's what a garage+ADU of ~21.75' height (to the midpoint of the roof) looks like: Both the garage and ADU are standard heights. The hip roof is designed to match the house in pitch and overhang. Our project would have been fine under the new changes (just lop a foot off the back to get under 850 sqft—wasted lumber and no difference in street appearance, but whatever...). But we have a gargantuan lot by city standards.

@whitemice and I attended yesterday's ADU meeting. Nothing really new—they were mainly trying to gather input on some ideas (including a pointless [IMHO] pre-approved plans scheme), but there was nothing really concrete. One idea would be to have a hybrid approval process where it would be administrative approval only unless a neighbor objects, in which case it would go SLU. I don't like how this gives any one neighbor the ability to cost their neighbor ~$1k to go SLU instead of administrative, but it's at worst the same as status quo, so I'm fine with it as a baby step. A few of us pressed them on the recent changes that essentially prohibit ADUs on smaller lots (20' height restriction if unable to meet setback requirements for a primary structure, and the Planning Commission can't waive it, even during the SLU process). They claimed that it was an intermediate change for if an administrative process is enacted, which makes no sense to me (why not change it all at once? why straightjacket the Planning Commission?). Pressed a bit more, their response had a subtext that there were some people that felt that the Planning Commission could not be trusted. I am frustrated at the way the planning staff was trying to sugarcoat the changes. An SLU is still required, but the Planning Commission has less leeway than before—there's no way to spin this as a positive improvement (unless you don't want ADUs). Of course, they don't want to criticize elected officials, but they could still be more straightforward. As it stands now, the zoning ordinance basically prohibits two-story ADUs on 95% of city lots. My guess is that this is exactly what many neighborhood associations and city commissioners wanted—even if they would never state so publicly.

There's a bit of discussion on this post on the Eastown FB page: https://www.facebook.com/eastowngr/posts/10156617584326501 Interestingly, I got a notification that the Eastown FB page "liked" my comment explaining (based on what little knowledge I have) what will likely be presented next week; but the "like" is now gone. Not sure if someone mis-clicked, or if one admin liked it and another admin unliked it. I haven't seen anything more organized than that post—I don't know what @ModSquad is referencing.

Of course. Now that they've raised property values to the point that poor people can no longer live in Eastown, they need to keep fighting against anything that might allow them back in.

Really hope that isn't true. There are many excellent taquerias in S GR, but Taqueria San Jose is among the best.

The city is holding two public meetings on proposed changes to ADU regulations: Wednesday, 2/20, 12:30-1:30pm: https://www.facebook.com/events/252597058964702/ Thursday, 2/21, 6:00-7:00pm: https://www.facebook.com/events/2266952916668857/

That's currently true system-wide (including the Silver Line), so I assume it would be true for the Laker Line as well. (source: former Spectrum employee, current[ish] GVSU student, frequent Rapid rider when I wasn't working from home)