I just talked to Carman Godwin, and apparently the group wants to open a restaurant at the space, with 150 seats and be open at night with a liquor license.
The group has the right to do this in the zoning by exception, but the fear is that there would be late night noise at a building almost completely surrounded by residential apartments.
I can kind of see the point. The building was originally built as a dry cleaners and up until the opening of SNAP fitness has never been open at night in its history.
But that said, their original concept was for a breakfast and lunch diner, which the surrounding neighbors supported.
I can't verify that these are the unvarnished facts, considering the tall tales that were going around over Kickbacks and Mellow Mushroom, but that is the other side.
The location, I think, gives some weight to arguments against a late night live music venue. Perhaps the owners of the Roost could weigh in?
My question would be what exactly is RAP's involvement and why? Looking at the statement above in bold, if we are going to nit pick every development idea why have zoning or exceptions at all. If the plan meets the zoning requirements then let them open.
If it's a zoning "by exception" situation, then it doesn't meet the current zoning requirements. They still need to get an exception. If an exception is needed, the surrounding community's support is critical in getting the exception granted.
This is where RAP and other impacted community stakeholder's involvement would come into play.
And this is exactly the problem with what RAP is doing... they are kingmaker or dealbreaker merely because they are an "organization"... RAP does not speak FOR the neighborhood... they are not elected representatives... they are a private lobbying group.
Let's do a hypothetical... let's say there are actually just 12 people for Roost and just 12 people against Roost. 12 against speak with some RAP board members and RAP comes out "on record"
advocating against Roost... the 12 people that are for it are never heard from or dismissed as a small segment of the community... after all RAP has spoken on the issue and RAP represents Riverside and Avondale...
See how this works? RAP chooses their battles and if you follow those battles it is quite curious how they go about it. That is if you think these battles are following some uniform guidelines, as if they were an actual municipal department for example, with accountability, oversight and equal access... but when you realize they are really just a private lobbying group, then it all makes sense.
LOL. BTW - nearly all the shops around the neighborhood were some kind of retail operation for many years before ANY of them became restaurants like Biscotti's, Brick, Mojo, etc. so the fact that this defunct laundry would also now be a restaurant is irrelevant.
