Friday, July 17, 2009

Competition for Grace Hall

Did you see the lead article in this week's The Woodstock Independent (July 15, 2009)?

Read the plans for the Resurrection Village. Check it out - a complex of 123 residential units, including construction of 23 single-family residences and 14 duplexes. Where would you rather live? Within feet of a busy two-lane, state highway with trucks and school buses going by - a steady stream of large and small vehicles and bumper-to-bumper traffic at many times during the day? Can't you just smell the diesel fumes and hear the noisy traffic? Or in a quiet, secluded, beautiful, rural setting - free of noise and fumes?

Most of the residents in either place won't have vehicles and won't be drivers, so a lot of parking pavement will not be needed. Will prospective residents choose Resurrection Village over WCLS? How many of them will? Will the existing units and the proposed units at WCLS be quickly filled?

Has the market study for WCLS, which hopes to demolish Landmark designation- qualified Grace Hall and will so ask the Woodstock City Council on this Tuesday night, changed? Would a current market study strongly urge WCLS to put the brakes on their plans and sit out the recession/depression and not get financially over-extended in a very weak market?

The Woodstock City Council seems poised to grant a demolition permit to Woodstock Christian Life Services (WCLS), even though the Woodstock Plan Commission and the City Council have not seen detailed drawings of WCLS plans for the new buildings. Why isn't the City Council requiring the same plans as it does of other developers before giving a green light to a project?

If the City Council does grant approval on Tuesday night for WCLS to demolish Grace Hall, will it impose a condition that demolition is not to begin until financing is secure to build all of the new buildings and that all plans have been approved by all required public bodies?

What a shame it would be for WCLS to tear down a historic building and then cry
"Poor me" and have to delay construction of the much-talked-about duplexes!

1 comment:

QuitWhiningAlready said...

All this Woodstock stuff really does make me miss the place. Maybe I'll move back. And work for the SO...ha!