Amazon: The Thread | 5,000 Jobs | 1M SQFT in Nashville Yards

[Dale]

1 minute ago, WebberThomas4 said:

Ahh, PATHE..

Their intentions are good, but their ideas and demands aren’t rooted in reality, IMO.

Here’s my estimate for how much their affordable housing demands would cost: 36,000 units at the roughly $250,000 a unit (factoring in land cost, infrastructure work, labor/materials, interest) comes out to around $9 billion. That should be easy to come by given Nashville’s current budget constraints. 

 

But they’re DEMANDING it.

[PaulChinetti]

The group that worked/negotiated with MLS and Ingram got a few decent things out of them. But their demands were more based in reality. SO it's possible to get concessions but I think they should probably be a little more realistic.

[Guest]

I question whether their intentions are good.

12 minutes ago, WebberThomas4 said:

Ahh, PATHE..

Their intentions are good, but their ideas and demands aren’t rooted in reality, IMO.

Here’s my estimate for how much their affordable housing demands would cost: 36,000 units at the roughly $250,000 a unit (factoring in land cost, infrastructure work, labor/materials, interest) comes out to around $9 billion. That should be easy to come by given Nashville’s current budget constraints. 

 

[Dale]

Irony: California transplants instrumental in passing draconian building cap in Seattle. Seattle transplants intent on putting screws to Nashvillians.

[Bos2Nash]

38 minutes ago, nashvylle said:

The People’s Alliance for Transit, Housing and Employment (better known as PATHE) will hold an "Amazon, The Grinch that Stole our Homes" rally Tuesday afternoon, where supporters will march from the $1 billion development site slated to house Amazon's Nashville operations to the Metro Courthouse, according to a media advisory. The advisory states "featured speakers will include residents who recently relocated to Nashville after being pushed out of Seattle because of increasing costs of living, Nashville residents struggling to find affordable housing in the city and individuals negatively impacted by the 'status quo' budget."

As with the transit debate, PATHE has laid out a list of demands for Metro to meet as part of its opposition. According to a news release, those demands include:

• Funding the construction and retention of 31,000 units of affordable housing. (The mayor's office has previously said Nashville will face an affordable housing shortage of 31,000 units by 2025 if no action is taken.)
• Funding the construction of 5,000 additional units of affordable housing to "address the 'Amazon Effect' on Davidson County’s housing market. (This figure matches the number of jobs Amazon promises to bring to Nashville.)
• Refusal to grant any incentives to Amazon. (Metro has promised to pay Amazon roughly $15 million, or $500 per job created over a seven-year period — Metro's standard incentive. Separately, the company stands to benefit from the $15 million in infrastructure spending Metro has tapped for the Nashville Yards development.)
  • Drafting a funding referendum to expand the city's mass-transit system to focus on "the needs of working people first." (Mayor David Briley has said if he is re-elected in next year's mayoral election, he will not pursue another funding referendum. Voters overwhelmingly rejected Metro's original referendum this May.)

  • PATHE includes representatives from Homes For All Nashville, a housing advocacy group; the Music City Riders United, which includes riders of the city's current transit system; Democracy Nashville, which is most known for backing the city's Ban the Box campaign to support hiring efforts for people with felony convictions; and Amalgamated Transit Union & Local 1235, which is the city's transit union.

    In an emailed statement, Thomas Mulgrew, the mayor's spokesman, said: "Mayor Briley’s top priority is working to spread equity and economic opportunity to everyone in Nashville. His work in getting the recently-filed disparity legislation done and the Nashville GRAD initiative are just the latest examples of this commitment. The mayor will continue to invest the people who currently call Nashville home, as we continue to attract outside business and investment."

So it is Meto's standard incentive package for a corporate relocation, and then there is the $15 million that the city was already going to be spending on infrastructure for a development that was underway well before the announcement. That is a bad topic to work off of. If anything, to me that means the city has done a good job not being goobed over for an Amazon hub. We gave the minimum we offer and still got the goods. 

I agree that the affordable housing efforts needs to be ramped up by the city, but demanding the city build them will never work. we will end up with 36,000 units of Brick, pill box style housing that we see in Cayce and S 4th Ave.

[smeagolsfree]

Everyone wants their own vision of utopia, when in fact Utopia is figment of everyone's imagination. A quote from one of my favorite songs "Tax the rich, feed the poor, till there are no rich no more"?

Then the problem will be you will still have a lot of poor people trying to get rich, to keep it from the rest of the poor.

[Dale]

4 minutes ago, smeagolsfree said:

Everyone wants their own vision of utopia, when in fact Utopia is figment of everyone's imagination. A quote from one of my favorite songs "Tax the rich, feed the poor, till there are no rich no more"?

Then the problem will be you will still have a lot of poor people trying to get rich, to keep it from the rest of the poor.

Out-of-staters flee the effects of taxation. Attempt to bring taxation to their adopted states.

[MLBrumby]

1 hour ago, Dale said:

The Millennials where I worked liked the 80’s music they piped in. They thought their own generation’s music was crap.

My millennial kids love 80s music. We brought them up on 60s/70s music (I'm 48). One said the other day that they more they listen to the "old stuff" the sillier that Rap and Trap junk sounds.  He even said autotune has ruined music. 

3 minutes ago, Dale said:

Out-of-staters flee the effects of taxation. Attempt to bring taxation to their adopted states.

Great! All Nashville needs now is Antifa harassing motorists and pedestrians at key downtown intersections, and it'll be just like the PNW. 

[Mr_Bond]

Interesting article about how any bad idea can be made worse: moving from open-space to deskless offices.

https://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/hate-open-plan-offices-heres-whats-coming-next.html

"Multiple peer-reviewed scientific studies show that open-plan offices increase stress and illness, reduce workers' ability to concentrate, and substantially reduce worker productivity."

[Tennessine]

4 hours ago, Dale said:

Out-of-staters flee the effects of taxation. Attempt to bring taxation to their adopted states.

I have my doubts about that. Growing up in the 'burbs south of Nashville, every other person in our neighborhood was an out-of-state transplant who hated the policies in their former states. Nashville has a lot of folks from Illinois and California who wouldn't want to bring those states' tax laws with them. You'd be surprised by the number of conservatives from those states, especially in areas like Brentwood and Franklin.

[Dale]

5 minutes ago, nativetenn said:

I have my doubts about that. Growing up in the 'burbs south of Nashville, every other person in our neighborhood was an out-of-state transplant who hated the policies in their former states. Nashville has a lot of folks from Illinois and California who wouldn't want to bring those states' tax laws with them. You'd be surprised by the number of conservatives from those states, especially in areas like Brentwood and Franklin.

Well, you always hope for the kinds of refugees who won’t bring failing ways with them. But take the example of Houston: heretofore considered the most libertarian city in America, transplants appear to be at the root of efforts to tax and regulate.

 

[samsonh]

4 hours ago, Dale said:

Out-of-staters flee the effects of taxation. Attempt to bring taxation to their adopted states.

You do know Washington state has no state income tax, right?

[Dale]

7 minutes ago, samsonh said:

You do know Washington state has no state income tax, right?

Yeah, but Seattle ...

[samsonh]

6 minutes ago, Dale said:

Yeah, but Seattle ...

has no income tax....

[Dale]

1 minute ago, samsonh said:

has no income tax....

So Seattle has no taxes ? Then why are they coming in droves to Nashville and Charlotte ?

Edited December 11, 2018 by Dale

[samsonh]

1 minute ago, Dale said:

So Seattle has no taxes ?

I am sure it has taxes. It has no income taxes though, which is clearly what I said. Nashville has taxes too! In fact rather high sales taxes

Edited December 11, 2018 by samsonh
spelling

[Dale]

“People’s Alliance” sounds Reich-ish.

[SoundScan]

2 hours ago, Dale said:

So Seattle has no taxes ? Then why are they coming in droves to Nashville and Charlotte ?

Because it's expensive and experiencing explosive growth, making it more expensive. This pushes out people looking for more affordable areas. Seattle's population growth rate is among of the highest in the U.S., higher than that of Nashville, Charlotte, Austin, etc.. 

[titanhog]

29 minutes ago, SoundScan said:

Because it's expensive and experiencing explosive growth, making it more expensive. This pushes out people looking for more affordable areas. Seattle's population growth rate is among of the highest in the U.S., higher than that of Nashville, Charlotte, Austin, etc.. 

Plus...EVERYTHING is more expensive on the west coast.  Your dollar will go a lot farther here.

[Mr_Bond]

1 hour ago, SoundScan said:

Because it's expensive and experiencing explosive growth, making it more expensive. This pushes out people looking for more affordable areas. Seattle's population growth rate is among of the highest in the U.S., higher than that of Nashville, Charlotte, Austin, etc.. 

I think we have Nashville politicians who would love to pass regulations like those in Seattle, San Fran, Portland, etc., and now think they can because these newcomers will back them at the polls.  We need to keep our politicians from trying one-up each other in pandering to the transplants.

[Dale]

3 minutes ago, Mr_Bond said:

I think we have Nashville politicians who would love to pass regulations like those in Seattle, San Fran, Portland, etc., and now think they can because these newcomers will back them at the polls.  We need to keep our politicians from trying one-up each other in pandering to the transplants.

Remember that an item that spiced up the Amazon search was Seattle’s determination to levy an onerous ‘head tax.’

[CityHeart]

38 minutes ago, Mr_Bond said:

I think we have Nashville politicians who would love to pass regulations like those in Seattle, San Fran, Portland, etc., and now think they can because these newcomers will back them at the polls.  We need to keep our politicians from trying one-up each other in pandering to the transplants.

Why do you think it's simply newcomers/transplants who are in support ?

[Mr_Bond]

23 minutes ago, CityHeart said:

Why do you think it's simply newcomers/transplants who are in support ?

No, though I haven't studied this topic very much.  My point is that we may have Nashville politicians who idolize the power wielded by others in those Left Coast cities and want to test the political waters by showing how progressive they can be.

Of course, now we're straying onto a subject that is best reserved for the Coffee House.  So, back to Amazon!

[KJHburg]

^^^Actually both Charlotte and Nashville have grown around 13.9% since 2010 (to 2017) and that is FASTER than Seattle, San Fran-Oakland, Los Angeles, San Jose Silicon Valley, San Diego, Portland OR  and any other west coast tech hub that includes the mountain tech hubs of Salt Lake and Denver (barely)   

Guess which tech center beats them all?   Raleigh NC metro grew over 18%!  

Now Seattle is the fastest growing metro on the west coast mainly because it is slightly cheaper than the San Fran San Jose Bay area and has lots of Californians moving north.  

From wikipedia with the Census estimates of the metro populations

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metropolitan_statistical_areas

[henburg]

I think we're straying into a topic that many of you have expressed disapproval with in the past. I'll simply say that regulation is something that isn't inherently bad and that there are a lot of things that we could potentially learn from other city governments. 

I can't speak to the reality of this group's demands, but their intentions seem to be coming from a good place. I love our growth, but it's obviously not all sunshine and rainbows- gentrification is a very real and easily observable phenomenon happening in Nashville. I think that our city government has failed to consider the perspectives of many in regards to development in the past and even very recently. So, why shouldn't there be a group invested in the interests of our longtime residents who are now being priced out of their neighborhoods? I think that holding our leaders accountable is something that is pretty important.