Earlier this week a person many regarded as the greatest living baseball player passed away.
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| SF Chronicle full front page, Thursday |
A century ago, Salemites saw another great, Hall of Famer Bullet Rogan, at Oxford Park, the current site of Santiam Wine and Fitts Seafood.
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| April 16th, 1921 |
In opposition to the ballpark improvements neighbors say the benefits accrue solely to private business, and they are opposed to the supposed "commercialization" of the ballpark.
But this is a cramped, narrow view of benefit.
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| One person sitting at left, another just off to the right Two people only on a sunny weekday afternoon! |
The park is not overused generally. It could totally use more life, more people!
Here are occupancies at two parking lots on early Friday night. It was Make Music Day, so maybe that depressed counts a little, but shouldn't a park at risk of being "overused" show a clear pattern with more people and more cars?
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| North parking lot at Winter Street |
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| South parking lot looking towards Summer Street |
The images here are a sample size n=2, one weekday afternoon, one Friday evening, so you know, the usual small sample size caveats. Those who argue Bush Park is struggling with capacity issues might consider some regular parking lot counts. What's the data show? Are these rare exceptions, or are they in fact more usual?
Back to the question of who benefits, there is also benefit to the spectators, not just private business. Who knows which college student will become a Major League Star, and the spectators will be able to say "I saw him when..." Here's a list of West Coast League players and their MLB debuts. Adley Rutschman is an Oregonian and alumnus of the West Coast League who has a real chance at a Hall-of-Fame career, for example.
There's also a buzz, which has real spillover, multiplier benefits. Hopefully people who oppose the ballpark took in in part of Make Music Day. Salem is often sleepy, and more events would add urban vitality. But neighbors who complain about overuse of the park too often seem to wish for their own private preserve.
The rhetoric of "priceless city jewel," used for the park by one critic of ballpark improvements, is very ambiguous and a little telling. It seems to say Bush Park is our best park, but there are other shades and connotations. Who gets to enjoy a priceless jewel? Royalty or the rich, right? Priceless jewels aren't generally offered to the public for wide enjoyment. Such a jewel's enjoyment is very exclusive, reserved for an elite. How is such a jewel obtained? Historically often by plunder, or by forced labor in the mines. The notion of jewel hits not merely themes of quality and value, but also themes of exclusion and power.
It really is an expression of our fondness for ornamental emptiness. We like our ornaments, and we like them quiet, available in theory and viewed from a distance, but not used greatly in reality. Too much museum and not enough bustle. A jewel to look at, but one too costly to wear daily.
Council on Monday will consider a "proposed amendment and restatement of an agreement for use of John Lewis Field, McCulloch Stadium, and Bush’s Pasture Park."
There are legitimate questions and trade-offs. It's not an unambiguous, one-sided matter. But critics of the concept are really leaning into exclusionary themes, seemingly not very interested in sharing a "priceless city jewel" with more people. This is a great problem with our historic preservation framework. We should want to share close-in urban amenities with greater numbers of our neighbors, including new neighbors. But instead the amenities are seen as "intrusions" to be defended against to protect the privileges of incumbents, those already there who value the "desirability of living in the close-in, inner city neighborhood" — mainly in single detached homes, it should be added.
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| "Intrusions" from 1986 Historic District Nomination |
Though it was not mentioned in the Historic District Nomination right there, the Urban Renewal project Willamette University undertook in the 1960s, which proposed the loss of "115 private dwellings, seven court apartments with a total of 52 units, [and] two large apartment houses," might also be context and background for the defensive action.
We should now read the Nomination and its concern as principally about large-scale demolition, and not about the gradual, incremental change to a close-in neighborhood that could be even more walkable with additional nearby amenities. In opposition to things like removing the overlay zones, opposition to ADUs, and opposition to ballpark improvements, the rhetoric of intrusion and preservation have shifted from defending against macro-level, multi-block demolitions, characteristic of old-school Urban Renewal and proven to be harmful, "catastrophic" as Jane Jacobs said, to defending against micro-level, single lot transitions, which are the natural churn of any vital urban area. This is a mistake in scale.
Here, the proposal to improve the ballpark is appears to be a reasonable and incremental transition to a higher level of activity on summer nights, and does not entail meaningful demolition or alteration. As Strong Towns so often says, "No neighborhood should be exempt from change. No neighborhood should be subjected to radical change." Radical change would be a brand new stadium on lots scraped of houses for it, and with an expanse of new parking. This is instead a minor expansion in terms of new square footage, is swapping out grass for artificial turf, and represents an expectation for an increase in attendance for about 30 days in the summer. WU and the Parks Board are very interested in using and enhancing existing transportation capacity and not building any new parking. Critics argue the ballpark proposal is radical change, but from here it seems incremental.
Previously:
- "Power and Wealth at Bush Park and Deepwood: A Cultural Landscape Plan at the HLC" (2020)
- "Bush Park Cultural Landscape Plan out in Draft for Review" (2021)
- "City Council, July 26th - Bush Park Plan seems Rushed" (2021)
- Earlier this year, on the Memorandum of Understanding, "City Council, January 22nd - Urban Renewal, Climate, Baseball"
- A brief note on SPRAB and a newspaper article, "Meeting Bits: Parks & Rec, SCAN, Highland"
- A longer note on SPRAB, "Parks & Rec Board to talk Baseball and More
- "Debate on Baseball in SCAN this Week"
Other Items
There's a bond update, including a discussion of McGilchrist at 22nd. It was interesting to walk through it last weekend.
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| On-ramp to multi-use path east of 22nd |
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| A stormwater swale on 22nd at McGilchrist? |
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| Photo locations at 22nd and McGilchrist |
The City should consider saying more about the stormwater management. If the area is already prone to seasonal high water, how are stormwater swales going to work? Aren't they just going be part of the general flooding? The hydraulics of this project are a great part of its expense, and it would be interesting to learn more about that.
I have great doubts about swooping, zooming turning movements by drivers and the weaving transitions to and from the multi-use path. The intersections themselves are unprotected, with too much priority for higher-speed turning, leaving people on foot and on bike more exposed to turning conflicts at speed than they really needed to be.
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| New Public Works building |
The City has a funding shuffle.
Parks Operations staff also moved into the new Public Works building. As the building was paid for using Utility rates, which are to be used on Utility-related expenses, the General Fund is obligated to pay for the portion of the building that will be used by Parks.It was nice finally to walk by it last weekend. It is handsome, but it feels out of place there! I got a little bit of a church vibe from it, also. It seemed a lot nicer than the Police Station. I hope employees find the space itself a cheerful place to work.
It will be interesting to see how the building ages and how the neighborhood context might also change.
Status anxiety is behind the proposal to rename the airport! We saw the same status anxiety when the Conference Center wished to be known as the Convention Center. Now the Salem Airport wants to be known as the Willamette Valley Airport.
The City looks to adopt this year's downtown Parking Tax paid by merchants, "$169.00 per space or $469.00 minimum tax, a 2% increase from current rates." In a few years this will be phased out finally for curbside parking paid by users.
6 comments:
On FB a person writes, "Bunk! The guy who always preaches about autoism is counting cars? Bush park is a walking park. The major feature is that you can just walk to it or maybe ride your bike to it. Or maybe just walk through it."
Bush Park is classified in the 2013 Park System Master Plan as an "Urban Park." They say, "Urban parks meet the active and passive recreational needs of the entire city and may even be a regional draw." So Bush Park is intended to serve people who will not be walking or biking to it. Critics of the baseball proposal have argued that there won't be enough parking, and understanding more with data on current utilization rates and parking demand would also be helpful. Part of autoism is an uncriticial insistence on the oversupply of parking. So yeah, it's appropriate to count cars in parking lots, and that is not at all inconstent with a critique of autoism.
As for "A couple of years ago we found that the oak trees were being damaged by people walking under them. Now it ok." Where is there any suggestion that the baseball field will encourage people to walk under the Oaks? There are paved paths to and from the ballpark, and no features in the proposal will extend into the Oak grove. This objection seems to assume people will leave the paths and start milling around in the Oak and Camas grove. This is unlikely, and if that becomes an actual problem, countermeasures could be taken.
The key is not to assume people will damage the Oaks, or create other problems, but to have a yearly review process to catch problems at an early stage, if they occur, and then to formulate mitigation plans. Maybe some of the "what ifs" will come to pass, but the solution is an annual review process and course-correction, not to assume the worst case from the start.
Another person on FB writes,
"This plan to colonize Bush Park is yet another effort to convert public use facilities to serve the so called “free market”. Taxpayer money supports the maintenance of the park, and as soon as possible the developers will have their hands out for taxpayer money to support their “enterprise”. We already forego millions of dollars of taxpayer money in property tax abatements as well as handing out cash from the URA slush fund for businesses. The result of this largess is that the City is slowly headed towards bankruptcy and city services that actually benefit the public, such as the library, are being financially strangled. So if this is such a great deal, why can’t the people behind this deal buy some property and finance it through loans or investors? My guess is no lender will touch it."
First off, if we're gonna invoke colonizing, a look up the hill at "Guidance of Youth" and its celebration of the original colonizers, the "Pioneers," is in order. The park is already on colonized land, and there's no pure "uncolonized" status we can preserve or return to. This is unhelpful rhetoric.
Second, there is substance to the critique of stadium subsidies!
They are generally a bad idea, and it's unfortunate that $3 million was secured from the State. Those funds were not from City of Salem tax abatements, URA slush funds, or any other source directly available to the City of Salem, however, and would not have supported the Library. Since the $3 million is already a done deal, it has not seemed useful to harp on that.
Maybe there's a detailed argument that the ballpark expansion will create a burden on Parks maintenance funding. But has anyone actually made that argument in detail? Additionally, with an annual review, it could be addressed if it did became a problem.
Third, A new ballpark on a new site could subtract from land that might be better used for housing, since we have a housing crisis. It's also more likely to be in a less walkable, more car-oriented area, which would induce even more driving trips and require more pavement for parking and result in a heat island effect. Incremental upgrades to an underutilized stadium resource, upcycling as it were, seems better than building brand new. There would be a social and opportunity cost to a new stadium.
Here, the social benefits to more life in the park seem greater than the costs of introducing microplastics via artificial turf (balanced by less irrigation, so there is less rot in Oak root systems), higher parking demand during ballgames, some nighttime lighting (though the modern system appears to support dark skies).
So here anyway, concern for dark sky and for microplastics have seemed like the most salient criticisms and ones that deserved more detailed analysis.
Mr. BOB - I' sick of your Cliff Notes quality attacks on the concept of historic preservation. If you truly believe that your principles are as solid as the supercilious tone of your writing suggests then I challenge you to come out from behind your keyboard and engage with me in an open debate on the topic. Name the venue, I'll be there.
Here you go (over three comments):
"The Breakfast on Bikes Blogger claims park is not well used (BOB says overused) regularly. This is patently incorrect according to the guiding document that governs park management today, the Cultural Landscape Management Plan. The CLMP identifies overuse as a critical threat to the natural and historic character of the park, which is its primary feature and what it was deeded to the city to be...."
That the park is highly used and at risk of overuse is an orthodox position right now. On a few visits a month consistently over the years, however, the park has rarely seemed crowded. It's crowded for the Art Fair and big events, and those concentrated moments of use might indeed constitute threats. But on a routine, daily basis, the park has often seemed slack and underused. Parking lot counts and counts of visitors would either confirm the orthodoxy or show that its use might be exaggerated in some ways.
"The BOB is usually all about how important it is to reduce driving and get more humans worldwide using pedestrian and mass transit. In this post they make an attempt to claim that there is ample parking available for those who chose to drive. While this is also likely untrue, as their visual sampling is extremely limited, it's disappointing to see the lack of principle."
This is misguided criticism. We've advocated here for traffic diverters on High Street. Criticised the addition of new parking at Geer Park. How is observing moments of low parking demand inconsistent with wanting less driving in general? But yes, it is a small sample, and the post clearly indicates that. Another reason for a robust sample of parking lot counts.(1/3)
"BOB loves to claim knowledge of historic preservation, as it relates to public planning and bringing our community into the future. I challenge the BOB blogger to an open debate on historic preservation. Let's discuss its merits, what it actually is, and how/why the BOB blogger has consistently failed in understanding it. Because they have, and do fail to actually understand. They pick and chose pieces but its the same way a high school student picks and chooses pieces of cliff notes without actually reading and understanding the material. Disagree? The open debate invitation stands."
A different post this week was on the Steinbock Junk Co., and suggested that we had not given much attention to the history of local junk dealers. You might find this a silly observation. There are lots of gaps and silences in Salem's establishment history, and we're not so much interested in rehearsing what has been said before, but in trying to surface new things. So are some details selective? You bet. Are they the Cliff Notes version? Not at all. There's no Cliff Notes on Salem Junk dealers and the role anxiety about junk and those who traded in it informed the first zoning scheme of 1926.
Where has there been any discussion of Oxford Park and the role a century ago baseball had in SCAN to crib from? There's no Cliff Notes version of that either.
And it was a post here (see CLMP, Appendix B., p.45) that started conversation about "Guidance of Youth." There's no Cliff Notes on that.
This is also is an unfounded criticism. Posts are of course more informal than an academic paper or book-length monograph, and you are welcome to disagree with them - even to write your own interpretations to correct or improve on them! - but they are offered seriously.
As for Historic Preservation more generally, see most recently "Histories of Englewood Park and of SCAN at the Historic Landmarks Commission Thursday" with links to other relevant posts. The critique of our historic preservation scheme is all right there out in the open, not hidden.
In a nutshell, preservation should generally happen with individual listings and not districts, and there should be more attention to narrative/interpretation, and less on aesthetics. (2/3)
"When a highly viable regional baseball park already exists in our community, exploiting a world class natural historic park that is open to the public for commercial endeavor is, in fact, not only a radical change, it is effectively the same as building a new stadium at the edge of an urban growth boundary. There is little that Willamette University can do, and NOTHING that they have committed to doing, to reduce the total impact of foot traffic, noise, lighting, and loss of public land incurred in our public park by the land grab they attempting under the guise of "community good.""
This is a real difference of opinion, and there may not be facts to prove it one way or the other. This seems like very great exaggerated fear, particularly in the comparison of a project at Bush Park vs. a project "at the edge of the UGB."
"Which leads nicely to the final point - Willamette could host non-profit youth sports TOMORROW with zero expansion of their stadium facility. The proprietor of Salem Baseball LLC has said that he set his sites on Bush Park in partnership with Willamette, because it is free to him. The profit goes into his pocket, and the park suffers while City staff and Councilors rubber stamp what's best for business interests."
Apart from your scorn, this is basically true. There is subsidy here, and it would have been better for the State not to have given the $3 million. But we disagree on the extent to which the park will suffer and the extent to which a lively atmosphere of summer baseball is a harm. (3/3)
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