Don't buy #1 Liquors

This is what I told the Council last night on behalf of NCPCA.  NCPCA had heard a presentation from City staff on the Capital Improvement budget and voted on only one item on it -- unanimous disapproval of the proposal to purchase #1 Liquors (the store surrounded by the University View apartments on Route 1).

1. This proposal is motivated by the ugliness of the building.  It is indeed flagrantly ugly, but it is not in violation of the County building code.  (When the City purchased the property at Route 1 and Edgewood, the house was in violation of all sorts of code, and there was no prospect of every correcting it.)  The City Council should not put itself in the position of buying all the ugly buildings in the City and pretending to make  parks of them.

2. It's sometimes argued that the state's Open Space purchase money isn't real money, because it will vanish if the city doesn't use it by a near-term deadline.  But the development and maintenance of the "park" would cost real money, and the City would be committing itself to a another difficult park development project.  Let the money go if we can't use it properly.

3. Given the location, anything the City puts there necessarily becomes an amenity for University View.  I happen to have favored that development when I was on the Council, and I personally favor high-rise student housing near campus in general.  But an amenity for one specific property should be paid for by the property owner, not the City as a whole.