Category Archives: parks

Mayor Wants To Take Away Park Land For ‘Affordable Housing’

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Mayor Stoney’s Biennial Real Estate Strategies Plan wants to use city land to promote affordable housing development and affordable homeownership.
To that end, it proposes taking City-owned parcels to the Maggie Walker Community Land Trust (MWCLT) for the development of affordable homes.

It is including at least two parcels in Oregon Hill’s Samuel Parsons Park in this proposal.

(and least people think this just about Oregon Hill, the Biennial Estate Strategies Plan also identifies other city park lands such as 1800 Maplewood in the Randolph neighborhood and 1901-1905 Conrad Street in the East End as building sites.)

Neighbors, understandably, are very upset. But so far, either the Mayor’s office, other City officials, the media, and the Mayor’s challengers in the election are ignorant of the proposal or don’t care.

Of course, many neighbors believe in and support affordable housing, and have done so historically in Oregon Hill and elsewhere.

But this proposal is bringing up bad memories from when other parts of the park were built on due to City government’s (and in particular, the Planning Department’s) ineptitude and callousness.

It’s part of the utter disregard for established neighborhood plans and the neighborhood’s dream for a Belvidere greenway.

Neighbors can’t help but see this as part of a coordinated attack on the Oregon Hill neighborhood in conjunction with the disastrous Richmond300 plan. If they were not aware of the target lines being drawn on the community before, they are becoming aware now.

Scenes From OHNA Meeting Tonight

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The Oregon Hill Neighborhood Association met earlier this evening in Pleasants Park. Attendees for the most part kept socially distant and wore masks.

School board candidates Jenny Aghomo, Stephanie Rizzi and Dr. Decardra Jackson spoke.

Councilperson Stephanie Lynch also spoke.

In responding to a question about the Richmond 300 planning, residents were grateful to hear Lynch re-affirm her commitment to changing the future land use designation of Oregon Hill to RESIDENTIAL in the Richmond 300 plan.

Councilperson Lynch is holding a virtual 5th district meeting this Thursday.

Terminate The Monroe Park Conservancy’s Lease!

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This coming Tuesday, Mayoral candidates will be participating in a forum hosted by The Metropolitan Business League. Unfortunately, it is unlikely that the state of Monroe Park will come up as a topic, but it should, for both incumbent Mayor Stoney and City Councilperson Kim Gray (who sits on the Monroe Park Conservancy board!) are responsible due to their inaction. Both of them have failed the public on this important issue. Perhaps they care more what the VCU administration wants.

Oregon Hill Neighborhood Association President Todd Woodson once again asked that elected leaders be accountable and do the right thing by terminating “the Conservancy”‘s lease on the park.

Dear Friends

A year and a half after a complete 7 million dollar plus renovation, Monroe Park’s pathways are unusable. The Monroe Park Conservancy, who has a lease on the park for $1 a year, CHOSE to not follow the master plan which the City paid over $700,000 for, and along with design firm 3North and City Capital Projects Supervisor Donald Summers, proceeded to remove all public restroom facilities, destroyed the historic tree canopy, installed faulty bollards (many are now gone), defaced the WWII Memorial and installed superfluous signage which detracts from the parks natural beauty.
In spite of leaving the park an unusable wreck, the “conservancy” still holds the lease which as their website states- “can be terminated at any time”.
The most recent form 990 for the Monroe Park Conservancy lists liabilities of over $200,000.00.
Once again, I respectfully request that this lease be terminated and the park- our City’s oldest and most historic, be returned to the management of our wonderful Department of Parks, Recreation and Community Facilities. A plan must be crafted to reinstall the restrooms, fix the pathways, replace the bollards, fix the WWII Memorial and restore the historic tree canopy. The taxpayers are out over 4 million dollars here and are on the hook for at least another 2 or 3 due to mismanagement by the “conservancy”.
Please consider this reasonable request.

Sincerely,

Charles T Woodson

Let this be a lesson- When neoliberal privatization schemes go bad, the public is left with the mess. It’s very telling how certain local commentators and media outlets are still silent on this debacle while some of us in the community have put our necks out by speaking out about it from the beginning.

Monroe Park Conservancy In The Red

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While citizens have been warning about mismanagement for years, the accounting on Monroe Park is becoming more stark.

Yesterday the Richmond Free Press published an article on the situation, “IRS filing shows Monroe Park Conservancy running deficit”.

The report for the 12-month period ending June 30, 2019, shows the conservancy received $238,264 in revenue primarily from grants, but expenses ran $503,000, leaving the group swimming in red ink.

The group, established in 2014 to be self-supporting and awarded a 30-year lease to manage the city’s oldest park, also reported a significant drop in its total assets, leaving it with virtually no cash or monetary backup to support its work, according to the report.

Readers are left to wonder about the latest 12-month period. The article does not mention that the Sierra Club, the Oregon Hill Neighborhood Association, and many citizens have already called for the ouster of Alice McGuire Massie, the president and executive director of the Monroe Park Conservancy and the termination of the private Conservancy’s lease on the public park. The article also fails to mention that 2nd District Councilperson and mayoral candidate Kim Gray sits on the Conservancy’s board.

Mayoral candidate Justin Griffin has said that “An audit of the Monroe Park situation is one of the first things I will do. This project is a prime example of the mismanagement and waste we have here in Richmond.”