November 2016

Dunbar Spring Neighborhood Meeting 

Treasurer’s Report – currently $765.73 in Urban League account. Gail is working on keeping only a minimum amount in that account and depositing the rest in our TOPCU account. Gail and Karen are the board members who can write checks on this account. Anyone wanting to make a donation the neighborhood should make checks out to Dunbar/Spring Neighborhood Association. There was a flurry of activity with deposit from the home tour, check made out to Caridad Kitchen, check to cover neighborhood tour expenses and t-shirt money. Full accounting will be available for December meeting

Announcements

Karen is meeting with other downtown neighborhood residents concerning affordability of housing in downtown area neighborhoods. The hope is to have a community-wide conversation about this topic as well as taking some action steps to help seniors stay in their homes and help with affordability for other home buyers. The next planning meeting will be Wed. Dec. 7th. See Karen for more information.

Verizon has contacted the neighborhood and wants to put a small cell phone antenna on the TEP pole in the Entrada Real parking lot. We have asked them to come to our December meeting to discuss this.

Pima County supervisors meeting on Tue. Nov. 22nd will be discussing Monsanto project. Pamphlet with more information was passed around.

December 1st – Mayor and Council will consider the parcel at the parking lot of the church at University/4th Ave to be rezoned to fit four stories of apartments. This would be the first time a property would be taken out of the historic preservation zone.

Tree planting recap – ten trees and basins were planted in October. The next step is for curb coring and curb cuts. There is a permit fee and a cost for the curb core. At this point, the cost will be $125/house to cover cost and permit. In addition, Tucson Water provides a rebate for water harvesting costs (would cut this cost in half to about $65/house). The hope is this would take place January 7 or 14, 2017. We can’t move forward with this project unless we have six houses willing to participate. Brad Lancaster will approach Ward 1 to see if Tucson Water will allow all the permit costs to be funded by rebates. There might also be a barricade fee, that Brad will look into seeing if this can be waived. Need to sign up for curb coring by December neighborhood meeting. Contact Brad Lancaster if you have questions. Discussion

Caridad Kitchen – Kristen Culliney (882-5641 ext. 7402 or kculliney@communityfoodbank.org) and Michael McDonald from the Community Food Bank discussed this project and expansion plans. Caridad is open Mon-Friday 8-4.

Caridad became a project of the Food Bank in 2011 (prior to that it was part of the Holy Family Church)

There is a 10-week culinary training program for people who have barriers to employment. This program is offered four times/year. They will take a break during the construction.

They provide between 11,000-15,000 meals/month either to other organizations or to give out as sack lunch at their location.

They have purchased the two lots south of the current building at Main/2nd St. The entrance will be off Main and it will be a fenced facility. Current building is 5500 sq. ft, will be adding 3500 sq. ft – part of it will be dedicated parking.

Holy Family has changed the time of their sack lunch distribution to match Caridad – from 3-4 p.m. Caridad is not increasing the number of meals provided unless the need increases. Currently sack lunches are distributed by Holy Family Church Sun-Wed, by Caridad Thurs-Fri. There is a walk-up window by the front door to pick up food. Currently approximately 70 people/day are picking up food.

One of Caridad’s goals next year with the expansion is to provide 350,000 meals/year and partner with Pima Council on Aging, Senior Centers and homebound customers.

Ezra requested a site plan

Comments were made re: crates being used as furniture in the park and request for water harvesting and using native plants in expansion project.

They hope to break ground the 3rd week of January.

Sahara Property

A resident on 9th Ave has called about noise situations. There was a plan for the Sahara to work on landscaping along 9th Ave, but it hasn’t happened yet. A comment was made about possibly writing a letter to the Sahara similar to the letters that went out to neighbors earlier this year about the need to keep the right-of-way clear.

Other side comments included that a mesquite and ironwood were killed near the TEP sub-station in the chicane and that a mesquite was chopped down on private property near Queen/5th St.

Salvation Army

1st Street was seeded with native grasses and wildflowers. The current plan for maintenance by the Salvation Army is once/year to go in and cut everything to the ground so it doesn’t look overgrown. The neighborhood would like them just to remove weeds. Salvation Army doesn’t feel like they have the staffing to properly maintain the area.

Discussion about possibly using community service folks that Caridad sometimes has to work with neighborhood and Salvation Army to train how to take care of area properly.

Ezra and Natasha will organize a mini-cleanup and invite Caridad and Salvation Army to participate. This will be a one-time thing with help from the neighborhood – moving forward it is the Salvation Army responsibility. Potential date of January 2017.

Possibility of creating plant ID tags for the future to label what should be kept and what is a week. Motion to write a letter to Salvation Army in regards to right of way on First St and community education and cleanup event for January 2017. Approved 12-0.

Continuing conversation about rest of neighborhood. Someone brought up a suggested plant palate as a possible future issue for discussion. A question was brought up about including city right-of-way regulations with the welcome letter. Suggestion brought up to add to the welcome letter a line about encouraging neighbors to plant native and drought tolerant plants as possible. We will send out a request for possible plant suggestions to the e-mail list.

Neighborhood Preservation Zone (NPZ) – Ezra has attended meetings. Currently Feldmans and Jefferson Park have NPZ’s to fend off mini-dorms and the destruction of historic homes to build the mini-dorms.

The NPZ would put an overlay on zoning. There would be a neighborhood architect review board to look at any new development within the neighborhood. This is a lengthy process that will need a number of volunteers and possibly take up to three years to complete.

Possible drawback – developers might not want to bother dealing with a NPZ. An incident in W. University involved someone who was not allowed to put a metal roof on their house because it wasn’t historic. There might be problems with whoever is sitting on the committee.

A difference is that Dunbar Spring has state historic status, but West University and Armory Park also have city historic status

Purpose of NPZ: Neighborhood Preservation Zones (NPZs) are zoning overlays enabled by a 2008 ordinance, and are available to neighborhoods within the 1953 City limits that are designated National Register Historic Districts, or are eligible for that designation. Within Neighborhood Preservation Zones (NPZs), new construction on residential (R)-zoned properties is required to be compatible with surrounding historic residential buildings, in accordance with specific design guidelines for each NPZ, to ensure that residential infill development fits with the unique historic characters of these historic neighborhoods. Here is a link to the city website with more information plus links to the plan for Feldmans and Jefferson Park: https://www.tucsonaz.gov/preservation/city-historic-designations-and-de…

More than 50% of home owners would need to participate for the whole neighborhood to be considered. We would select who would be on the review board.

Currently Feldmans has the potential to lose their historic status because so many houses have been demolished.

We need to use caution if we move forward – Ezra is learning about the process. Jonathan Mabry would be the lead and the city would help with the process.

Possible spring dinner under the stars

After the spring benefit and fall neighborhood tour, there has been a request for future neighborhood-wide event. Possibility of closing off streets and setting up neighborhood dinner was discussed – bring your own table, chair, plates, food, etc. and pack everything up.

Questions about a cost for barricades, question about using the basketball court (Lisa will check in with Dunbar Coalition), question about having it outside at Whistle Stop, thoughts on hosting it on an empty lot (after owner of lot gives approval).

Anyone interested in helping to plan a dinner under the stars event should contact Ezra.

Logo update

The t-shirts that were provided for neighborhood tour volunteers and were available for sale had some tweaks made to the current logo as the current logo was too difficult for the silkscreen printing process.

Much discussion about potential to change the logo. The purpose of a logo is to convey information and it should be scalable (for web, printing, etc.)

We need to figure out what we want in a logo, put a call to artists in the neighborhood, potentially have 3-5 designs to put in the April 2017 newsletter with discussion at the May meeting.

Halloween recap – A huge thanks to Mike McKisson for organizing – the maps were a great idea. More participation next year!

Speedway/Main – Ward 1 told Ezra that the Southwest corner of Speedway/Main might be developed, but no more information was shared. The committee looking at Speedway/Stone can also look at this area.

Committee Reports

DNARC – prior report sent out - New CEO Kathleen Eriksen: introduced and welcomed to the group, as well as Randy Dorman, new chair of the Downtown Tucson Partnership Board. Downtown Video project – Menlo Park working on a welcome video for Caterpillar. This could work for all downtown area neighborhoods and can be presented to any new, big employers in the region to showcase living opportunities for downtown. Round Robin – El Presidio: El Rapido building restored, back end of building is Fanny’s Cocina a small market; Barrio Kroeger Lane: doing a walkability study with Good Neighbor Ventures; Iron Horse: coffee shop going in 3rd Ave/9th St and Isabella’s Ice cream on 4th Ave near underpass; Armory Park: Owl’s Club and Exo Coffee going in @ Brings Funeral Home; Menlo Park: city wants to pump reclaimed water to 29th street and let it flow down the Santa Cruz

Downtown Links – Originate will be demolished in the next few weeks. Karen will contact TPAC again about art for the deck park. Ezra will contact Ward 1 to find out who the current contact with TDOT is for this project.

Garden – Plants are growing.

Dunbar Coalition – Feb. 17 – Dance Theater of Harlem fundraising program, there is a new Juneteenth coordinator, they want new curtains for the stage and a suggestion was made to contact Sonoran Theater Works, 1300 Paleo meals are prepared/delivered every month from the kitchen, they are talking about putting up signs in the parking lot to discourage people from living in their cars, want to do a clean up day around the school.

Speedway/Stone – Trader Joe’s is still considering this area

11th Ave Parcel – we are waiting for the grant application process to move forward

Motion to approve October 2016 minutes. 11 Approved 11-0