Uptown development
While residents of public housing are told by city officials that they must now find housing on their own, and while People With AIDS are told by the state that they must now buy necessary prescription drugs on their own, there are people in our community, and elected officials who will be seeking our votes in the near future, who say that a developer of expensive condos, as well as a profitable national bookstore chain, ought to get $6 million in city subsidies. That is obscene.
A private developer wants to remodel the old Goldblatt's Department Store at Broadway and Lawrence into a Border's bookstore, with expensive condos perched atop. Why should he get public money? Why does a national bookstore chain need public money? Why do people earning way above the city's median income need public money?
We do not oppose the redevelopment of the Goldblatt's building. What we oppose is redevelopment that drives out longtime residents and locally owned businesses with track records of commitment to our community.
We agree that there should be retail activity on the street level and housing atop at the Goldblatt's site. We simply do not believe city money should subsidize a chain bookstore ( with two underperforming stores in the chain just to the north and south ) when it threatens nearby, longstanding independent bookstores that have served our community for decades. And we do not think the city should build subsidized housing for the well-off, particularly when the greatest need in Uptown is for low-cost family housing.
The City Council will soon be voting on these questions. They are not voting to give permission for a developer to build a Border's bookstore and expensive condos. The city is not preventing him from doing so. They will be voting on whether he should be able to feed at the public trough.
Queer to the Left