McMILLAN THEORY NO. 2: Developers Have “Plants” in the Audience.
The McMillan Sand Filtration Plant site is a 25-acre plot of land north of Bloomingdale. In the mid 1980s, the plant closed, leaving the city to determine how to redevelop the land. In December, Vision McMillan Partners, a group of developers, unveiled plans to transform the parcel into a mixed-use community with housing, retail, office space, and park land. Since that time, rumors, conspiracy theories, and chatter about the project have sparked huge debates about the project.
CONSPIRACY THEORY NO. 2: Developers have "plants" in the audience.
Last Saturday's meeting started with a presentation by EYA representative Aakash Thakkar and Jair Lynch, whose company is part of the development team. After the usual rounds of diagrams, photos, plans, and explications, the meeting opened to community inquiries.
Following some back-and-forths, a slender, blond woman in a red V-neck sweater stepped up to a centrally located mic. She then loosened the mic from its holder and, with the wire dangling behind her, turned away from the developers and faced the other half of the room. Her name was Robin Buck, and she had a message to deliver: "This is called a community meeting but this is clearly a developer-led meeting. The developers are presenting the information, and then they are allowing us to speak."
In other words: Buck felt the place was planted with people favorable to developers. And she's not alone. An ANC commissioner wrote this note to another commissioner, which ended up being passed around to several constituents:
"Talk about setting up the questions and discussions in a way to maximize a particular response: that has been the format of the meetings I attended. The meetings are also liberally salted with plants who will advocate the developer's line. That was clearly how the April meeting was set up with Washington Hospital Center people and developer staff people evenly spread among the [actual] community members."
The developers don't refute the allegation, at least in the case of an April 2008 meeting. According to EYA President Bob Youngentob, that first meeting was set up to gather community input from small groups of residents. Developer reps, yes, were planted there to "facilitate" discussions, he says, and they acknowledged who they were.
To counter the strategy, Buck has been doing some "facilitating" of her own.
She attended Tuesday's residents gathering and hosted a similar get-together the following day. In January, she attended one meeting with the McMillan Advisory Group, a longstanding group of civic association and ANC leaders who meet with the developers on a monthly basis. "People got their permission to speak from the developer. There were three or four Jair Lynch people strategically placed around the room, and they gave the marching orders from the moment we got in," says Buck.
On Saturday, Buck held a couple of clipboards in her free hand. She asked people to sign them, so they could be contacted for "alternative meetings."
8:38 am
Seriously?? As hard as it is for the people who hate the Mcmillan mtg to believe, there are residents (not plants) who want the development to occur and [GASP] are not "plants."
3:12 am
Ruth, when are you going to acknowledge that perhaps it's some of these Channing Street neighbors that are dysfunctional and not the developer, the ANC, and the people who support the project. Wasn't the outcome of the "Channing neighbors only" meeting that they wanted to mandate either 33% of the land as contiguous park space or 50% of the total land be green space. That's bat shit crazy.
3:52 pm
This sounds like the young man who stood up at the meeting on Saturday to say that the current site is an "eyesore". For some of us that live on Channing, we see the grass, trees, towers, ivys, migratory birds, hawks and sunsets reflecting on this park land in a very different way.
But, thank you for your lucid arguments, Jason, You are clearly a thoughtful and insightful gentleman.
1:09 pm
Jason-
The point of the story was to respond to some of the many ideas, rumors, theories, and narratives about the McMillan development.
I attended the Saturday meeting, and very few residents had anything good to say about the developers' proposal. Certain people believe there's wiggle room within the plan for more green space. In fact, they adamantly believe it, and I can't imagine them backing down.
Meanwhile the developers are going to present a plan that they think is sensible. The two opinions may not match up. But they're both strongly-felt.
4:07 pm
So is this just a conspiracy then? Sounds to me like people sitting in the audience to facilitate the conversation are indeed plants. Good business strategy to be sure, but hardly a conspiracy theory.
I completely agree that the proposals are strongly felt and compromises will be made by all involved. The question is, will the neighborhood fulfill its potential through a well designed space or in spite of a poorly designed one.