A moratorium on uglification, now!

Will someone please stop City Council and their puppet-masters from allowing such horrendously ugly buildings to be built? The iconic tourist expression for our town is Biltmore — as in "built-more," not "build-more." After the ugly butterfly-roof structure on South Lexington, the clunky replacement of the elegant Penny's building on Battery Park Avenue and the new horrific greeting symbol of all this schlock — the Kleenex-box condo on the former site of the Chamber of Commerce — our collective generation is going to have a lot to live down years from now, when a future, hopefully more enlightened generation looks back and bemoans all this essentially useless uglification.

Where is all of this coming from? Laundered drug money? Laundered toxic-credit-scam money? Shame on City Council for what has already been done and shame on us if we allow real architecture like the Basilica to be dishonored by yet another modern pseudo-neo-nouveau abortion in our town! Visualize St. Lawrence Park! A moratorium on further Asheville uglification!

— Tom Craig
Asheville

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5 thoughts on “A moratorium on uglification, now!

  1. ASHEVILLELOKEL

    “Elegant” JC Penney Building ….. the only windows in the entire building where the front display windows.

    The “butterfly” roof you abhor is actually one of the GREEN features of that building (it was approved by all “the powers that be”).

    I guess you would prefer the Asheville of the 1970’s when almost every building downtown sat empty and the tax base was in serious decline as a result of the mass migration of retailers to Tunnel Road….

  2. Private Rights

    I ask again, does nobody in this town understand private rights?

    Forced Annexation, Zoning and Land Use Plans (seizures), in my opinion, is the theft of property rights without the owner’s consent, taxation without representation and disenfranchisement of a voters right to vote. And, in my opinion, are unconstitutional.

    The 4th Amendment of the Constitution of the United States states: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and SEIZURES, shall not be violated…..

    Private Property is property NOT belonging the Government. And since it does not belong to the Government, why do we LET them tell us what we can do with it? Isn’t that what they do with annexation, land use plans and zoning? Private Property BELONGS to the person who paid for it and whose name is on the deed. If, the government can tell you what you can do with your property you are not secure in your property and it is no longer your property for you do not have total control (Security). It is my opinion that the government does not have any right or rights to put ANY CONTROLS of any type on private property at all. The value of your property is in what you can do with it. Not what you can’t do with it.

    You may find this book of interest: “This Land Is Our Land, How to end the war on private property” by Congressman Richard Pombo and Joseph Farah.

  3. Private Rights

    I ask again, does nobody in this town understand private rights?

    Forced Annexation, Zoning and Land Use Plans (seizures), in my opinion, is the theft of property rights without the owner’s consent, taxation without representation and disenfranchisement of a voters right to vote. And, in my opinion, are unconstitutional.

    The 4th Amendment of the Constitution of the United States states: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and SEIZURES, shall not be violated…..

    Private Property is property NOT belonging the Government. And since it does not belong to the Government, why do we LET them tell us what we can do with it? Isn’t that what they do with annexation, land use plans and zoning? Private Property BELONGS to the person who paid for it and whose name is on the deed. If, the government can tell you what you can do with your property you are not secure in your property and it is no longer your property for you do not have total control (Security). It is my opinion that the government does not have any right or rights to put ANY CONTROLS of any type on private property at all. The value of your property is in what you can do with it. Not what you can’t do with it.

    You may find this book of interest: “This Land Is Our Land, How to end the war on private property” by Congressman Richard Pombo and Joseph Farah.

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