{"id":489,"date":"2012-09-17T11:15:58","date_gmt":"2012-09-17T15:15:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2012\/09\/yes-vdt-but-save-strickland-mill.html"},"modified":"2012-09-17T11:15:58","modified_gmt":"2012-09-17T15:15:58","slug":"yes-vdt-but-save-strickland-mill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2012\/09\/yes-vdt-but-save-strickland-mill.html","title":{"rendered":"Yes VDT, but —Save Strickland Mill"},"content":{"rendered":"

\nOn facebook,
\n
\nSave Strickland Mill<\/a>
\njust posted
\n
\na critique<\/span><\/a> of
\n
\ncertain parts<\/span> of
\n
\nthe VDT’s writeup<\/a> on the
\n
\nRemerton City Council’s Strickland Mill vote.<\/a>
\n-jsq\n<\/p>\n

\nValdosta Daily Times,
\nSeptember 12, 2012
\n
\nMill to come down:
\nBuildings to be razed, historic tower to remain
\n
\nby Quinten Plummer<\/p>\n

\nVALDOSTA \u2014 The iconic smoke stack will still tower over the
\n
\n<\/a>
\nCity of Remerton, according to local officials, but
\n
\nthe majority of
\nthe historic Remerton Mill complex will be demolished and converted
\ninto a park
\n<\/span>
\nafter the City Council gave the mill’s owners the
\ngo-ahead for demolition during Monday evening’s regular session.\n<\/p>\n

\n

\nThis is not a factual statement: the city council’s motion is as
\nfollows: Councilman Bill Wetherington made the following motion
\nwhich was unanimously voted in by the council members present that
\nnight (note that councilman Sam Flemming was not in attendance)\n<\/p>\n

\n“I move to approve the certificate of appropriateness 2012-04 for 1853
\nW. Gordon to be issued and effective as of October 25th 2012 for a
\nperiod of one year from that date with the condition that the cotton
\nmill smokestack remains intact and shall continue to remain intact
\nin accordance with title 18 of the code of City of Remerton.”\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nThe mill’s ownership group simply wants relief from its obligations
\nto the property, and Remerton
\n
\nMayor Cornelius Holsendolph said the
\nrestoration of the mill is just too large of a project for a city of
\nRemerton’s size.
\n<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n

\nThat is the reason why\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

\n

\nSave the Mill advocates presented an
\nalternate plan reducing the redevelopment project of the entire mill
\ncomplex to the 1899 original building. the plan would not be limited
\nto the city of Remerton. Save the Mill advocates proposed finding
\nthe right developer (private or public entity) to take on the 1899
\nmill, smokestack and the 1930s water tower.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n
\n\u201cOur biggest concern was the financial feasibility of us
\nmoving forward with buying the mills and putting in the necessary
\nwork to restore it,\u201d said Holsendolph. \u201cIt’d be great if
\nthe Save the Mill committee can find a way to save it.
\n<\/span>
\nBut as a
\nsmall town, we just don’t have the money to take on the
\nproject.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n

\nUnfortunately the decision that the city made on Monday night to
\naccept the total demolition of the mill complex (save the
\nsmokestack) removes any legal protection that the city had over the
\nmill. Instead the city took away any guarantee for save the mill
\nadvocates to continue with their efforts to find a way to save it.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nThe agreement will keep the wrecking balls and salvage truck away
\nfor
\n
\n45 days, said Holsendolph
\n<\/span>
\nwho stressed that the smoke stack will
\nremain intact.\n<\/p>\n

\n

\n45 days does not provide adequate time to pursue any further offers.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nHe also said that
\n
\nthe site will be home to a new park, which will
\nfeature a walkway that leads straight to the tower.
\n<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n

\nA park and walkway were not included in the motion. Mayor
\nHolsendolph confused the city of Remerton staff’s recommendation
\nwith the actual motion. The motion transcribed above is also
\navailable in its entirety in this live footage found
\nhere.<\/a>\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n[ … ]\n<\/p>\n

\nJoe Tillman, spokesman for the Remerton Mills LLC and part owner,
\nsaid the group desired to cut its losses and completely demolish the
\nmill site when he spoke before city council in June. He claimed that
\n
\nthe buildings are structurally dependent upon each other in a way
\nthat the entire site had to be leveled.
\n<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n

\nThis statement is an opinion only.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n
\nTuesday’s decision was a compromise of sorts,
\n<\/span>
\nas it essentially
\nlifts the bulk of the mill’s financial burden from the ownership
\ngroup, which stated that it had worked with more than 20 developers
\nto work on a feasible plan for restoring the site. The decision also
\nleaves the City of Remerton with a hallmark from its historic past.\n<\/p>\n

\n

\nA compromise was not reached. 98% of the mill complex was approved
\nfor total demolition. The decision was made on Monday night not on
\nTuesday.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On facebook, Save Strickland Mill just posted a critique of certain parts of the VDT’s writeup on the Remerton City Council’s Strickland Mill vote. -jsq Valdosta Daily Times, September 12, 2012 Mill to come down: Buildings to be razed, historic tower to remain by Quinten Plummer VALDOSTA \u2014 The iconic smoke stack will still tower […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[97,48,40,14,2,19,20,21,22,604,3,133],"tags":[1682,8736,8720,8717,8704,8701,8699,1719,8709,8702,8710,12,7,8711,8712,4,8793,1717,1720,1718,8700,6,8742],"class_list":["post-489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","category-code-enforcement","category-community","category-economy","category-government","category-history","category-law","category-planning","category-politics","category-remerton","category-transparency","category-vdt","tag-10-september-2012","tag-activism","tag-code-enforcement","tag-community","tag-economy","tag-georgia","tag-government","tag-haley-hyatt","tag-history","tag-lake","tag-law","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-planning","tag-politics","tag-regular-session","tag-remerton","tag-remerton-city-council","tag-save-strickland-mill","tag-strickland-mill","tag-transparency","tag-valdosta","tag-vdt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=489"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}