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Grove Park Inn making “progress”
To the Editors:
Here we go again with the Grove Park Inn (GPI): big building plans.
Their proposed construction master plan in at least five phases and
over at least 10 years will render most all of their woodlands “occupied”
by humans, via a dense mess of guest cottages and condos.
One phase has the Bynum House’s 5 acres the site of 20 stand-alone
condos, if GPI gets the rezoning from RS-4 to RESORT that it wants.
If it doesn’t get what it wants, these woodland acres will go down
as single family dwellings, according to a GPI representative, with
less consideration for green buffers. Battle House will be destroyed
despite the GPI’s promise three years ago of protection, and will
be the site for 30 condos.
Other phases include building guest cottages north of the GPI entrance,
as well as a new parking garage. Complete plans can be viewed at the
City’s Planning and Development Office.
The vote for rezoning and the conditional use permits for the master
plan and for the Bynum condos will be before Asheville’s City Council’s
meeting of Nov. 23. “Conditional use” requires that the plan
meets seven standards, including that the “development of the land
be in harmony with the scale, bulk, coverage, density and character
of the neighborhood in which it is located.”
No matter how Artsy-Craftsy these dwellings are designed, all in all,
it is a HUGE development in the midst of a regular, residential neighborhood.
It serves no entity but the Grove Park Inn’s Cash Flow Analysis,
and as such constitutes spot zoning with private benefits. The Grove
Park Inn needs to serve the public good, as well as its guests.
Helen Purdum
Asheville
Help free the Raleigh Three
Three young people are now in jail awaiting trial, having
been cruelly targeted simply for being near a political demonstration
last Friday night [Nov. 5] in Raleigh at which the North Carolina (US)
Republican Party headquarters was vandalized. David Reuben Hensley,
Melissa Lynn Brown and Vanessa Marie Zuloaga face felony charges. Two
of the three, young women, were violently assaulted by an angry bystander
who pressed their faces to the ground and yelled for police. All are
completely innocent of the charges, but had the misfortune of being
in the wrong place at the wrong time, surrounded by furious police looking
for someone to scapegoat.
The police are now under pressure from Republican fanatics to make an
example of the innocent prisoners because of the political nature of
the street demonstration. As a result, the three are stuck in prison
with exorbitantly high bond — $50,000 each — for a “crime”
they didn’t commit. The police and Republican strategy is to isolate
and psychologically wear down the low-income prisoners by making it
financially impossible to be freed from jail. The local press has whipped
up a sensationalist furor, playing off of fears of anarchists and calling
the prisoners “domestic terrorists,” ignoring the total lack
of evidence. Until we raise enough money to free these unjustly imprisoned
young people, they will remain in jail until their trial date (at least
three weeks away). It is critical that we support each other, especially
at a time when we are losing so many of our civil liberties.
PLEASE donate anything you can to help bail them out of jail and aid
in their legal defense! Let’s show the state that they can’t
unfairly target and oppress people for expressing dissent!
To donate, you can send money through PayPal, at http://www.paypal.com.
Click on “send money” and enter in ealbiston@yahoo.com as
the recipient.
If you would like to send money through the mail, send it to:
Liz Albiston
PO Box 281
Chapel Hill, NC 27514-0281
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