All fall down
I went out to RayBro, the electric supply place on Stock Island, to order some outdoor light fixtures today, and all the guys there were riveted to the action out their front window.
Across the street, heavy equipment had done this to a trailer park in mere hours.
It had been a long battle and an old story: A developer had bought the land, negotiated his way out of the leases -- some of the residents had been there for 30 years -- and planned new construction. You can bet the rent that the new rents will be astronomically higher.
Stock Island has never been glamorous -- well, maybe except for the country club -- but has always been far more affordable than Key West. The city and county are trying to promote affordable housing, a critical concern in a tourism-based economy so dependent on traditionally low-paid service workers, not to mention nurses, firefighters, teachers and others who serve the basic community. But somehow the developers seem to outfox them.
Every so often, the anger boils over. Over the weekend,
the police chief and a few city commission members led a crowd of angry neighbors fed up at the managers of the relatively posh Truman Annex development (so sterile, and such a lifeless contrast to the abutting Bahama Village). It's former Navy land once promised for much affordable housing, but of course developed via shell game into expensive houses and condos, and the property owners' association has now decided to hassle all "outsider" motorists and pedestrians with ID checks to access the public beaches and waterfront on the Annex's water side.
I think the marchers needed pitchforks and torches against the monsters, though I talked with one guy who has an equally annoying tactic: His business has a big fleet of trucks, and he's ordered his drivers to take swings through the annex between all service calls. Heh.
2 comments:
Tim O'Hara's coverage of issues involving the Truman Annex neighborhood has proven to have been highly slanted, often erroneous, and always with an attempt to twist any action into a bad light.
Had YOU lived here and had your "windows problem", he'd have painted you as a vile outsider trying to come here and mess up the character of the city. Any action can made to sound bad if the writer has an attitude.
Don't believe the hype. Truman Annex isn't the sterile environment you claim, it's a living, breathing community of good people. Just like Bahama Village, or any other neighborhood on this island. This neighborhood does not deserve such treatment.
If you look at ALL of the facts about the Truman Annex, without the slant, you just might wonder what all the fuss has been about. Those who have done so, usually do.
Thank you for approving my post. I really enjoy your blog, but just wanted to make a feeble try at clarifying the hype about Truman Annex that has gotten out of hand.
One thing that I forogot to mention while writing that comment, wss in response to the statement "It's former Navy land once promised for much affordable housing,...."
The affordable housing WAS built, it's the Shipyard condo complex, which makes up close to half of all the housing in Truman Annex. The problem is tha THE CITY only required a FIVE YEAR deed restriction!
As soon as the original owners completed their 5 years in the 650 square foot units, they all sold them to get the market-rate bucks to use as a down-payment on larger housing. There was no slight-of-hand involved.
In retrospect the short restriction period was a big mistake FOR THE CITY, but it's still being used as an example of the evils of the current residents of Truman Annex, who had nothing to do with it.
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