The City of Rochester and the Charlotte Community Association have agreed to work together to plan the future of the Port of Rochester. The cooperation is a big deal because many Charlotte residents were left with a bad taste and trust issues after the city’s previous attempt to develop the port, says Jonathan Hardin, president of the Charlotte Community Association.
That proposal failed due to lack of funding. But some Charlotte residents felt that the city was trying to force an outsized project on their neighborhood. The proposal included a hotel and eight- to 10-story condominiums.
Some residents also objected to turning public land over to private use.
A common complaint about Rochester is that it doesn’t do enough to take advantage of its waterfront — on the lake or the river. But attempts to invigorate the port area have met with mixed success, and some believe that, given Rochester’s harsh winters, the port will always struggle to be a year-round destination.
All of that will likely be part of the discussion when the Charlotte Community Association holds a charrette, which is essentially an intense planning session, for the port sometime next year. The association is working with the Community Design Center Rochester to get funding for the event.
The ideas generated from the charrette will be turned into a vision plan, which the City of Rochester will use the next time it starts looking for developers for the port area. CDCR will put together the vision plan, and the city will pay for it.
Some residents are still wary about trusting the city, Hardin says. But the association was encouraged when Baye Muhammad, the city’s commissioner of Neighborhood and Business Development, said at a recent meeting that the city is ready to start fresh with port planning, he says.
“We took that as, the huge buildings would be, you know, off the table,” Hardin says.
The association has used the time since Mayor Lovely Warren pulled the plug on the previous proposal in June to rebuild its relationship with the city, he says.
“We have argued in the past that those lines of communication haven’t always been open,” Hardin says. “We believe that all the foundation we’ve laid this past year is starting to pay off, because we can now at least email them and get responses back.”
Hardin says that some Charlotte residents want as much growth and development as possible, while others would like to see the port, and the neighborhood, stay the way it is. The association won’t take sides, he says; the goal is just to make sure everyone is heard and part of the process.
“Of course you’re not going to make everyone happy on any building project that you do,” Hardin says.
This article appears in Dec 21-27, 2016.
I can already see where this is going. The Charlotte Strong bullies are going to keep kicking the can down the road so that nothing ever gets developed now. They are trying their best to keep all of us “outsiders” away from enjoying the lake.
Hey, it only took 40 years to dig a hole in the ground. The marina is great. Now let’s line North River St with shops , galleries and food related businesses with 1 or 2 stories of housing above.
Johnny, I’ll believe it when I see it. I don’t think the group of people driving this (namely the Charlotte Strong motley crew) have any intention of any development being done. This is just their way of putting the brakes on any development and disguising it as “discussion”. They’ve already proven in the past that their only objective is to throw grenades on any development ideas and try to make their minority voice appear as the majority. Unfortunately they are really good bullies.
I love the new marina! I also favor a quaint look for the future. Charlotte cannot support huge density of high rises. One road in and one out…..traffic?!
I agree with you guys. I don’t think they want anything down there. But who get’s to decide? This is more like an asset that belongs to the entire million plus community. It’s our official waterfront, just like we have a downtown. As I said before. Consider 1,2,3,4 stories, built to look 100 years old, kinda gritty the way authentic harbors districts always looked.
Sandra, there’s currently Lake, Beach Ave and if needed, the old rail line could be another potential transportation corridor. Besides, I think a lot of this development would be housing and not large volumes of traffic every day. Creating a nice walkable community.
I don’t think the Charlotte Strong (I’m not a member) are against any development whatsoever as you claim. They had a poorly thought out and totally inappropriate for the area development rammed down their throats without any consideration for the residents or the waterfront itself.
Maybe this time the city will listen to the legitimate concerns of it’s citizens.
Jason, thanks for calling the Charlotte Strong group “bullies”. That indicates to me that people are paying attention to the real issues about development at the Port of Charlotte. It also indicates either you don’t understand the issues related to the last failed attempt for development or maybe you work for the City of Rochester. The only real objections to the last project plans by Charlotte Strong and many of the Charlotte neighbors (2000 signed a petition to rethink the project) is that 10 or 12 or even 4 story buildings along the east side of Lake Avenue would (1) block any view of the lake. river and new marina, (2) would be difficult to sell at $750,000 and up for three to four months of great weather (3) may be very costly to build on the planned site because it is on a buried gorge wall with bedrock in some areas over 100 feet below the surface, (4) the planned development was on city park land which would be lost to the larger community forever, as mentioned above in a comment. The other much larger problem to development in the Charlotte community is the lack of available land in the Port of Charlotte area and the reality that there is only one through- street, Lake Avenue extended to Beach Avenue and it is only two lanes with no room for expansion. The Charlotte Strong group were only seen as bullies (which just came up in this set of comments) because we kept asking about how to solve just these problems and the problem of the dreams of a developer who only had one real success story in St. Joe, Michigan and whos Charlotte project revenue and cost numbers never worked very well. As for the marina, our concern there was the cost. On the books, it is $22,000,000. In reality it is probably over $30,000,000 due to it being the third attempt at planning and building the facility. Last year it was only half full. It is another hard to swallow known fact that if the marina were fully rented every year for the next 50 years without any operational costs (not possible) it would be paid off. You can’t find a bank in the country which would finance that deal especially when you state the marina itself will only service approximately 50 vessels for three months of the year. In summary, so if Charlotte Strong members asking tough questions about how the city plans to give away our property and spend our tax money makes us “bullies” than so be it. We will immediately start working on new green tee-shirts with an added line, “the bullies of Charlotte because we care about how our tax dollars are spent!”
It’s not a park, it’s a PARKing lot! If the community truly believes a parking lot is the highest use of this land then say so – don’t hide behind other excuses.
Oh here we go again with the self-proclaimed expert Bill Brown pulling numbers out of thin air to “prove” that development can’t be done in Charlotte. First of all Bill, I don’t work for, nor know a single person that works for the city. So nice try and discrediting my statements by making that accusation. I’m just another citizen that has been closely following the development.
Secondly, It’s a parking lot there right now, not a park. Just because you make up numbers out of thin air doesn’t prove that a development project can’t or won’t be successful.
I call this group bullies because that’s exactly what I witnessed. Members of this group screaming at the top of their voices at meetings at the developers. Bullying construction companies working on the port. This group was also anointing themselves the voice of the public. I don’t remember them asking to speak for me on this project?
How about you present a real development plan? How about Charlotte Strong work with a real developer and come up with a real plan instead of just NIMBYism? Prove me wrong. Instead of just throwing grenades and bullying developers, let’s see a real plan from this group? If no plan comes forward in the next year it will prove a lot of people’s fears, that this group has zero intention of allowing development on this ugly parking lot in Charlotte.
Jasonw, it is always fun to watch a person discredit themselves like you have here. If you were an interested individual you would know the numbers I provide have been spot on because they come from the developer and the city. None are created from thin air. The parking area, if you check out state laws concerning parks is considered part of the park even if in this case the city owns it. If parking areas for parks are sold, it must be approved at the state level and in most cases there must be replacement land. I am sure you would know that because you are following this project closely. By the way, the charrette is being organized via the Charlotte Community Association, not Charlotte Strong. If you want to follow a bit more closely, show up at the meetings which will be starting this January and add your own thoughts, ideas and concerns rather than attack Charlotte Strong. Please participate in the planning so you can have it somewhat your way.
Bill it’s always fun to watch somebody make inferences and opinions and try to pass them off as facts. What I’m referring to you making numbers out of thin air is your statements about “will be too costly”, “difficult to sell”, “probably over”. Do I need to teach you about the English language and the fact that those statements are obviously your opinions and not based on fact?
And the doublespeak of calling a parking lot a “park” and using some technical language to justify why you try to make it sound green and full of trees by calling it a park. Do you have political ambitions? That sounds like a great use of doublespeak language to run a political campaign on.
I will be there in January. We need to make sure your group is not going to make decisions and speak for the greater public with which we should all share on the vision of Charlotte. If you and Charlotte Strong continue to throw up roadblocks and filibuster any future development, it needs to be exposed to the greater public.
To those that say you can’t build on that land, there is the ferry terminal building now, used to have 3 warehouse structures, even a steel mill. How did the land support a STEEL MILL, but can’t support a 4 story building now?
Jason on steel mill versus four story building issue, you need to ask foundation design. They did the research in March of 2009. They warned of high water tables, corrosive water and depth of bedrock as concerns in building there. To build 10 to 12 story buildings there only increases the cost of the foundation. Those real costs made the project not feasible. Good to hear you will be there.
You do know large parts of Boston, New York, San Francisco and other cities are built on fill and dont have any problems. The WTC was built of fill, it didn’t have any problems until an airliner hit it.
What needs to be off the table is any presumption that a developer will be getting huge tax breaks. We need to forget about doling out subsidies to build expensive high-rises with over-priced views.
Most of us can agree that four to six story mid-rises could be win-win.
It’s great that there’s enough parking for the annual Fourth-of-July celebration. But, let’s be realistic. We need property tax revenue and economic development for the port more than guaranteed free parking on one day of the year.
Bill Brown- the question is asked-what about foundation design? You’re saying older design was better?
Like I said Bill, now is the time to actually work towards a project and not extend it indefinitely. The Charlotte groups that spent hours and hours of their time fighting against the previous developer need to put that same effort into working towards a real development. Failure to put persistent effort into it and just kicking the can down the road will just prove to the naysayers such as myself that this group has zero intentions of actually working towards a development.
As you can see by the other comments here, your group is being watched and expects tangible results.