As the plan for redevelopment of downtown Columbia moves next month from General Growth Properties to the county, the Coalition for Columbia's Downtown shares these reflections on the work of GGP and their local leader, Greg Hamm:

A tip of our hat for widening their outreach to the community and for listening to our concerns.

A wag of our finger for the unfortunately deceptive survey they recently mailed to the community. Rather than being clear who the author of the survey was, it is plastered with "Town Center" and the People Tree logo, which makes it seem like it comes from the Town Center Village Board or another local group.

In addition, the questions it asks are all of the "Do you like puppies?" variety. Missing are the hard choices and trade-offs that will be required. Finally, they ask people to sign on as "supporters" of their plan, when no "plan" is actually provided, just a series of possibilities.

A tip of our hat for paying attention to and espousing many excellent ideas on a wide variety of important topics. Though we may disagree with one or another specific idea, they put forth support for the essential elements that are important to maintaining Columbia's vision and values such as affordable housing, environmental restoration, transportation, arts and culture, walkability, human-scale buildings, etc.

A wag of our finger for asking the community to approve 5,500 additional housing units (roughly the size of an entire existing Columbia village and a number our county executive has called "ludicrous") while thus far failing to provide the community with guarantees that the benefits of which they speak will actually be implemented.

It is not that we distrust Mr. Hamm. We believe that he is sincere in his intentions for Columbia. We are also well aware of a famous road that is paved with such good intentions.

Alan Klein

Harper's Choice

Alan Klein is spokesperson for the Coalition for Columbia's Downtown.

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