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Posted May 13, 2009, 5:50 PM
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Registered User
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Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: Texas
Posts: 825
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Proposal to sell Healy-Murphy Park dies
Sounds like there is still demand for cheaper hotel rooms near downtown, and that the city really doesn't have any idea how they want the area to develop, anything goes.
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/loc...Park_dies.html
Quote:
A plan to sell Healy-Murphy Park to a hotel developer — for which Councilwoman Sheila McNeil dug in her heels against fierce opposition from neighborhood and civic groups — died Tuesday.
But just barely.
In a packed meeting room, the City Council's four-member quality of life committee split down the middle, effectively stopping the plan from moving to the full council for a vote.
After garnering just 4 percent of the vote in Saturday's mayoral contest, McNeil said the proposed park sale had been the last thing she wanted to accomplish on the council.
“This would have been a good deal,” she said, “but I can't win them all.”
McNeil again cast a sale of the 1-acre park to hotel developer La Villita del Rio Development, the sole bidder, as a way to wipe out blight and to bring jobs to the Near East Side.
In an area “in great need of economic opportunity,” she said, “it's a win-win for all of us if we have the courage to do this.”
An array of opponents has fought the proposal, including the San Antonio Conservation Society, the Dignowity Hill Neighborhood Association and the Salvation Army, which runs an adjacent homeless shelter. And they were out again Tuesday.
“I'm a little disgusted with the process,” said Jose Macias Jr., the Salvation Army's director of development.
The push to unload the park, he added, appeared to have no justification.
The Salvation Army sold the property to the city for $10 in 1978 to use as a park. But the property, at 201 Nolan St., has become a hangout for drug users and homeless people.
City staff on Tuesday recommended against moving ahead with the plan. That's because the hotel developer's bid of $350,000 fell far below the property's latest appraised value of $430,000, according to Xavier Urrutia, the city's parks and recreation director.
To clean up the park, the city could consider leasing the property to a nonprofit, partnering with nearby neighborhood groups to develop a community garden or promoting a corporate adopt-a-park program, he said.
Councilwomen Diane Cibrian and Mary Alice Cisneros sided against putting the sale on a future council agenda, while Delicia Herrera, the committee's chairwoman, and Jennifer Ramos supported the move.
Cisneros' motion to stop the proposal failed 2-2, but Ramos couldn't get a second to move it ahead because Herrera, as chairwoman, couldn't weigh in.
Cibrian, who also fared poorly in the mayor's race, said she worried that a sale would set a precedent allowing the city to shirk the responsibility to maintain its parks.
Apart from McNeil, two people — a minister and restaurant owner Pat McKinley — spoke up for the plan Tuesday.
“We need to develop for the East Side,” said McKinley, owner of Pat's BBQ.
The opponents, many of who say the community had too little say in the process, have been far more visible.
At a public hearing Feb. 17, about 20 people blasted the plan. Many of the speakers wanted the city to clean up the property and beef up police patrols instead.
Both candidates in the June 13 runoff to replace the term-limited McNeil in District 2, Ivy Taylor and Byron Miller, have said they are against the proposed sale. Indeed, Taylor turned up at the committee meeting Tuesday to voice her opposition.
Also, on March 23, the city's Parks and Recreation Board unanimously sided against it because of community opposition and a low bid from La Villita del Rio Development, which built the Comfort Suites hotel across the street.
The development company's Shawn Chaudhry said the aim was to build a 50- to 70-room limited-service hotel on the site, which includes the historic Dulnig House. He also said the company was willing to raise its bid to $430,000, the appraised value, but to no avail.
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