Beechmont Neighborhood Association

Neighborhood Plan

Presentation

At one of our board meetings, Jack Trawick, executive director of the Community Design Center, made a presentation on updating or doing new neighborhood plans. Jack is a recognized expert in the field. The Design Center is to Neighborhoods what the Olmsted Conservancy is to Olmsted's Parkways. In fact, Jack had a lot to do with the renovation of Southern getting off the ground. I have worked with him off and on for years, He explained what the plan is and why Beechmont needs to do it now. If you are young and just starting out in this neighborhood; if you are middle age and raising your family in thia neighborhood; if you are elderly and living out your final years in this neighborhood; you have a very big stake in what direction Beechmont goes. Sure, you can always move, or just stick it out or you can be involved in setting the path this neighborhood will follow for the future. It is not a guarantee for the future but then, we all know there is no such thing. It is a plan and anybody who thinks that is irrelevant, well I feel sorry for you and your family. Anyway, the plan done in 1985 is available at the I roquois Branch Library, thanks to a reprinting funded by B District Commissioner, Delores Delahanty. It is there for you to read and study and come up with ideas. If you don't get involved, your future will be decided by people who don't live here and have litlle respect for those of us who do. You have certainly heard enough negatives about this area in the past months from Spalding University. If you want people who hold their opinions to decide the future of this area, then ofcourse, you will say it is a waste of time. However, if you really care about this great neighborhood and your neighbors, you will lend your support to the venture.

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Sept 8, 2003

From the President's Desk: What Now for Beechmont?


I received several responses to my article last month about the damage that skateboarders have caused to property in the neighborhood. If you would like to respond, there¡¦s still time and I would appreciate hearing from you.
???¦???¦???¦???¦???¦???¦???¦???¦???¦ This month I am writing about a big project that the neighborhood association board has been considering, a comprehensive neighborhood plan for Beechmont.
What is a neighborhood plan?
A neighborhood plan is a written document that inventories neighborhood conditions, assesses neighborhood needs, and makes recommendations that hopefully assure long-term stability for the neighborhood and its residents. Most plans address topics such as future land use, zoning, transportation, environment and historic preservation. Additional issues to address include recreation, airport noise and the unique needs of Southern Parkway as a major Beechmont thoroughfare and linear park. A neighborhood plan can be as comprehensive or as limited as we choose to make it
Why do we need a neighborhood plan?
With the implementation of Cornerstone 2020, the land use code for Louisville Metro that took effect in March, neighborhood plans must be considered by government agencies as part of their decision-making process, including the Planning & Design Commission and Board of Zoning Adjustment. Such agencies have considerable influence over future neighborhood development. When neighborhood plans are filed with city government, they become part of the official documentation of a neighborhood and are referenced when policy and budgetary decisions are made.
Why develop a neighborhood plan now?
The last neighborhood plan developed for Beechmont was in 1985. It addressed concerns such as reconstruction of the Watterson Expressway and the continuing deterioration of Southern Parkway. Needless to say, eighteen years have brought many changes to our neighborhood. The Watterson reconstruction is long finished, as are major renovations to the Parkway. New issues have emerged. Airport expansion, light rail transportation, establishment of an overlay district for Beechmont¡Knone of these were even envisioned in 1985.
Who pays for it?
Development of a neighborhood plan requires time and money. The Belknap neighborhood recently finished their plan after two years work. We can call on the expertise of various agencies and non-profit groups, such as the Louisville Community Design Center, some of which may require payment. We will apply for any available funding to help pay for development of the plan.
Who creates the plan?
The residents of Beechmont will be the driving force behind development of a neighborhood plan. It won¡¦t be a document prepared by outsiders and imposed upon the neighborhood. We will need volunteers to inventory neighborhood assets and conditions, identify problem areas, propose needed changes, and establish priorities for implementing the plan¡¦s recommendations.
What¡¦s next?
If you would like to be a part of the neighborhood plan development team, we¡¦d love to have you. You can choose the part of the plan you¡¦d like to work on, and the part of the neighborhood you¡¦d like to address. You can do as much or as little as you wish. Send me an e-mail or call me at 366.3292 if you¡¦d like to get involved in helping to determine your neighborhood¡¦s future.
VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES
At the June 26 membership meeting, Carol Winebrenner of Summers Avenue asked if there was a list of tasks that neighbors could volunteer to help with. While the following is not comprehensive, it¡¦s a start:
Gazebo landscape maintenance Join us at the gazebo at Southern Parkway and Woodlawn every Tuesday evening at 6 p.m. to pull weeds and perform other needed chores to keep the gazebo area looking its best. It¡¦s BYOT¡Kbring your own tools.
Bugler delivery Help get the word out! We need a volunteer to deliver copies of the Bugler to area businesses each time we publish, usually every other month. Right now we put the Bugler at Valu Market, the Iroquois Library, Americana Education and Recreation Campus, and the Third District police substation.
Writers needed Satisfy that creative urge and help your neighborhood at the same time by writing an article for the Bugler. Choose from a list of topics or pick your own. For more information,contact Bugler editor Julie Brackett at jjbrackett@earthlink.net or 361-4722.



Check out BNA¡¦s
revamped website at
www.beechmont.org!
Special thanks to Lisa
Zanchi of LZ Designs for
her help on the project.




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Local/Regional » Neighborhoods » News Item Wednesday, September 10, 2003

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Beechmont will work to create long-term plan

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By STEVE CHAPLIN
Special to The Courier-Journal


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Beechmont residents want to join a growing list of neighborhoods that have agreed on a long-term vision for improving their communities.

Such plans, if the Metro Council adopts them, can affect zoning decisions and city investments.

"We see development of a neighborhood plan for Beechmont as a way to recognize our assets and to hopefully create a blueprint for a community over the next 10 or 15 years," said Vicki Carter, president of the Beechmont Neighborhood Association.

The last time any type of plan focusing on Beechmont was developed was in 1985, when the Southern Parkway Community Plan was adopted. That plan also included the adjacent neighborhoods of Oakdale and Wilder Park, Carter said.

"One of our concerns right now is that we are not the same neighborhood we were 15 or 18 years ago," Carter said.

Airport expansion, noise from UPS jets, a surge in immigrant and refugee populations and the hint that a proposed light rail system might bump against the neighborhood are topics that never would have been broached 15 years ago, Carter noted.

"Those are issues we now think about every day," she said. "There have been a lot of changes."

One reason the time may be right to discuss creation of a neighborhood plan is the recent success of a $16,000 grant from Metro United Way's Vital Neighborhoods Program to stimulate membership in the Beechmont Neighborhood Association.

The grant allowed for the association's newsletter, the Beechmont Bugle, to double its frequency to monthly and to publish editions in Spanish, French, Arabic, Vietnamese and Bosnian to reach the community's growing ethnic communities. The grant also covers postage to temporarily send editions to each of the neighborhood's 3,600 mailing addresses.

"We've gone from 200 members to 400 households and businesses as members," Carter said. "We're up to 11 percent of our addresses now being a member in the association."

The key to a successful a neighborhood plan is to have plenty of volunteers, say those with experience in doing so, such as Clifton's John Baker and Belknap's Maggie Meloy.

You've got to get a lot of people involved and they have to be people from all parts of the neighborhood, especially people from the areas you are concerned about," Meloy said.

Baker said Beechmont will need to create a series of committees designated to address such community issues as transportation, land use, housing, and business concerns.

"We had over 50 people involved in what was a 11/2 year process," he said of developing the Clifton plan that was adopted by the Louisville Board of Alderman in 2000. "Our plan recommended, for example, that light rail be pursued and that TARC create a neighborhood circulator route."

Neighborhood plans must address land-use and transportation issues, but they can also be developed as platforms on other issues, such as those mentioned by Baker. Belknap, Irish Hill, Clifton and Smoketown-Shelby Park each have their own neighborhood plans and Beechmont's should be just as original, Carter said.

"Beechmont can claim all of Southern Parkway, which is a unique linear park, and then you have our immigrant population," she said. "We're getting ready to form a steering committee, and we know we'll need a lot of volunteers."

Clifton residents have used their neighborhood plan as a tool to address concerns about a new downtown bridge and the economic justice issues it would create. It also has led to creation of a pedestrian-bicycle committee. It addresses affordable housing and preservation issues.

"The plan can facilitate how a neighborhood looks at itself," Baker said. "But you need a lot of people, groups, interest and meetings."

One flaw that Meloy has seen and that she believes will be addressed is the lack of recognition a plan gets at the planning and zoning level and when issues come before Metro Council. She said an effort is under way to have Metro Louisville's development code and its comprehensive plan, the two primary documents that govern land use, require that new projects fit in with neighborhood plans.

"We'd like to see it get to the point where they are the letter of the law," she said. "But to begin one, you've got to have some really strong ideas. You have to have a vision, and that means getting beyond zoning. It should really make you ask, `What kind of neighborhood do you want?'"

The next meeting of the Beechmont Neighborhood Association is at 7 p.m. Monday at the Beechmont Community Center, 205 W. Wellington Ave., and Carter said the neighborhood plan should be a topic for discussion.




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