{"id":11102,"date":"2014-10-25T21:45:01","date_gmt":"2014-10-26T01:45:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/?p=11102"},"modified":"2014-10-25T21:46:19","modified_gmt":"2014-10-26T01:46:19","slug":"too-bad-about-the-nichols-house-jim-parker-vcc-2014-10-23","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2014\/10\/too-bad-about-the-nichols-house-jim-parker-vcc-2014-10-23.html","title":{"rendered":"Too bad about the Nichols House –Jim Parker @ VCC 2014-10-23"},"content":{"rendered":"

\r\nReceived 23 October 2014 on\r\n\r\nAlfred Willis comments at Valdosta Historic Preservation 2014-10-06<\/a>.\r\nI added the [vote correction] and the links. -jsq\r\n

\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nI attended tonight’s City Council meeting, and heard\r\n Dr Willis’ impassioned advocacy<\/a>\r\nof the Council approving the historical\r\npreservation of the Nichols’ House. Our Historic Preservation\r\nCommission\r\n\r\nreviewed this<\/a> and request recommended approval by a vote\r\nof five to one. Dr Willis sold me on the merits. Unfortunately, the\r\nCouncil must not have heard what I did, and unanimously\r\nvoted against\r\n[actually\r\nall but one against<\/a>]\r\napproving the designation. It looks to me, that as it\r\nstands, demolition of the house could commence tomorrow, and the\r\nreplacement construction of the apartments for VSU students can\r\ncommence.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nA huge number of apartment buildings have been built over the past\r\nfew years. First with the large complexes of Blanton Commons, The\r\nGardens, and The Grove, to the numerous buildings along West Mary,\r\nBaytree Drive, Boone Drive and Oak Street, among others. Plans are\r\nstill on tap for the major development of the entire city block just\r\nsouth of campus (one that I can actually appreciate). The question\r\nwas mentioned to me tonight whether these “student”\r\napartments are actually necessary. It seems enrollment at VSU, and\r\nthus the need for this housing, has plateaued lately, such that\r\nvacancy rate is relatively high.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nI don’t know if the whole idea of the historicity of the house and\r\nlot went over the Council’s heads or what. Only\r\nCouncilman Yost expressed any interest in preserving the house itself\r\n\r\nby having it\r\nmoved somewhere else<\/a>. But, like where? One of the determining\r\nfactors of the house design was because of the shape of the lot.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nLike I said, Dr. Willis’ presentation, which took up the whole\r\nfifteen minutes allotted to each side to speak, sold me on approving\r\nthe designation, with an eye toward doing something for the city\r\nwith it.\r\n\r\nThe only one to speak against<\/a>, by taking the entire fifteen\r\nminutes, was a lawyer alumni for the fraternity that owns the\r\nproperty, and wants to unload it, because the local chapter has\r\nceased to exist. Selling it to a developer that wants to demolish it\r\nand build apartments makes perfect sense. They’re gone. They have no\r\nvested interest in Valdosta. They want to cash out and go their\r\nmerry way.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nLike I said, when the vote came in on the motion “to deny\r\nhistorical preservation status” to the property, it was a\r\nunanimous seven to none\r\n[actually\r\nsix to one against<\/a>].\r\nI really thought they were going to table\r\nthe motion until next time and taken a little time to consider, but\r\nthe mayor had them go right to it.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nThe truth is, an apartment complex on the property, probably gets\r\nmore revenue for the city than this unoccupied property does. Boiled\r\ndown to dollars, the city would rather have the tax base of an\r\napartment complex on a piece of property than this dwelling. The\r\nvalue of the Nichols House was much more esoteric, and I don’t think\r\nthe Council could see that aspect. Thus, the vote. I think it a\r\nshame.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n-Jim Parker\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Received 23 October 2014 on Alfred Willis comments at Valdosta Historic Preservation 2014-10-06. I added the [vote correction] and the links. -jsq I attended tonight’s City Council meeting, and heard Dr Willis’ impassioned advocacy of the Council approving the historical preservation of the Nichols’ House. Our Historic Preservation Commission reviewed this and request recommended approval […]","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[14,15,16,2,19,54,134,55],"tags":[7990,7944,8704,8705,8706,8701,8699,10,8709,3491,8702,12,7,7945,4,6,8726,8743,8727],"class_list":["post-11102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economy","category-education","category-environment","category-government","category-history","category-valdosta-city-council","category-vsu","category-water","tag-23-october-2014","tag-alfred-willis","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-environment","tag-georgia","tag-government","tag-gretchen-quarterman","tag-history","tag-jim-parker","tag-lake","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-nichols-house","tag-regular-session","tag-valdosta","tag-valdosta-city-council","tag-vsu","tag-water"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-2T4","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11102"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11102\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11105,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11102\/revisions\/11105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}