Mobile
Pam Don't Play
CL's Person of the Year, City Manager Pam Syfert
Page 3 of 3
While the city has played a largely passive role in the renovation of other housing projects by the Charlotte Housing Authority, an agency the city funds but does not directly control, it has micro-managed the Piedmont Courts project to death, in the process growing it into a $140 million plan to transform an entire neighborhood into a housing development geared toward those of higher incomes, with space for low income units. Why? The project is on the edge of uptown, and presents another opportunity to control center city development.
Council Can't Keep Up
The developments listed above will likely be only the beginning, because the city now has powerful new tools in its arsenal. The renewed push for tax increment financing, which statewide voters approved this fall, originated deep in the bowels of City Hall as a way to entice developers to build uptown and along the rail line, a fact that wasn't immediately obvious because the Charlotte Chamber carried the water on it at the state legislature, eventually convincing legislators to put it on the ballot. With this tool, city government will no longer need to ask voters permission to issue debt to fund development projects. They can simply pledge the future increased tax receipts on development to pay for the bonds, allowing City Hall, and ultimately other governments across the state, to subsidize, direct and control development.
With the flurry of construction uptown, it's easy to forget that demand for more uptown office space has ground to a near halt as the banks set their sites on other markets like Boston and New York. If it weren't for the city's efforts, that is, if development uptown were left to the private sector alone, the headlines about the economic health of uptown might read very differently than they do today.
Meanwhile, with so many projects going at once, there's no way part-time City Council members can keep up with the sheer volume of material they're rubber-stamping, a fact that makes Syfert much more powerful.
In the past eight years, no one has done more to refocus the city's growth than Syfert. But that single-minded focus has come at a price. Potholes dot Charlotte's roads and traffic backs up at intersections in parts of town light rail will never serve. The waiting list for sidewalks in Charlotte's neighborhoods is decades long. Yet this fall, the projects on the city bond package, which city bureaucrats selected, included sidewalks for the rail corridor and roadwork on Old Pineville Road, which doesn't have much in the way of traffic congestion, but is critical to the light rail project.
At a meeting this fall, frustrated neighborhood activists blasted Syfert. Despite their best efforts, they can't seem to get the city's sorely understaffed code enforcement office to address very real problems that threaten fragile neighborhoods in places other than uptown. The city lacks the manpower, and apparently the will, to enforce the ban on parking in yards that it recently passed. Untested rape kits are gathering dust in police evidence rooms. And sometimes, when call volumes are heavy, an operator doesn't immediately respond when you call 911.
But when arts groups wanted hundreds of millions of dollars in funding for new buildings, they emphasize that the buildings will be uptown. That way, when they go to the city, they know that come hell or high water, after a long, micro-managed process, the City Manager's office will make sure politicians find the money to pay for it all.
And that, more than anything, is the Syfert trademark. Years from now, when the hacked-off neighborhood activists are long gone and forgotten, odds are pretty good that all that Pam Syfert built will still stand.
Contact Tara Servatius at tara.servatius@cln.com
Speaking of News_.html, 5.00000
-
A Family Affair
Dec 12, 2007 -
Darrell Roach
Dec 12, 2007 -
Body Talk
Dec 12, 2007 - More »
Latest in Cover
Calendar
-
Coach Conroy's All Sports Camp @ Waxhaw Recreation Barn
- Tue., July 15, 9 a.m.-3 p.m., Wed., July 16, 9 a.m.-3 p.m., Thu., July 17, 9 a.m.-3 p.m., Mon., July 28, 9 a.m.-3 p.m., Tue., July 29, 9 a.m.-3 p.m., Wed., July 30, 9 a.m.-3 p.m. and Thu., July 31, 9 a.m.-3 p.m.
-
-
Coveted Luxury Watches
- Mondays-Fridays, 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Continues through Dec. 30
-
-
AllMachines
- Through Dec. 30, 12-9 p.m.
-
-
AllMachines - Raymond Forklift
- Through Dec. 30, 12-5 p.m.
-
-
AllMachines - Forklifts
- Through Dec. 30, 12-6 p.m.
-
-
Tri Pointe Homes Continues Charlotte-Area Expansion with Three New Communities Homebuilder is on track to open three townhome communities by mid-November. 3
-
Golden State Warriors Fill Vacant Roster Slot with Lester Quinones' Promotion
-
News of the Weird: Do What You Want
Bizarre but true stories from around the world
