Updates: Questionairre, Yahoo Group, What's A Blog?
The questionairre that the group has put so much good work into is being distributed to local residents and is also available for either download or to take online here.
A Yahoo group to better manage email discussion has been created and should now include all card-carrying LAVA members. You can find out about the Yahoo group here.
I've gotten some feedback that people don't understand what this blog is all about, and in particular how it differs from the email discussion threads that are going on. I'll probably post more later, but the short answer is that the blog is intended to encourage public discussion that anyone can read or participate in, whether they are on a specific email distribution or not.
14 Comments:
So, I just got the survey and wasn't involved in it's making, so I feel a little bad complaining, but what are we supposed to learn from these questions? The first 15 in particular are really silly. I mean, who _doesn't_ want "beautiful landscap[ing]" or "safe and convenient... transportation"? Everyone wants an attractive, significant, and balanced renovation which doubles the value of our homes.
There must be tradeoffs in the design process, right? Can we get some questions which actually address those tradeoffs and talk about dollar estimates on the cost of various plans?
At the very least I propose a replacement, single question survery:
1) (yes/no) I would like Lake Anne to be awesome for me and my family.
There, you just took the survey :)
I applaud your desire to get down to the nitty gritty in discussing what are bound to be significant trade-offs. Certainly, many of the benefits of increased density are clear, at least to the merchants. I think the same holds true for some of the drawbacks (traffic, noise, possible ecological impact) but try like the devil as I have to encourage folks to discuss them (see previous posts where I was admittedly trying to stir these up) publicly, it hasn't really taken hold.
In defense of the survey though (we've taken to calling it a questionairre) I think that its very purpose is to outline that positive vision that nearly everyone shares. The more difficult parts which are bound to come will be easier to manage if we start from a place where we're saying something that is at least *a little* bit more specific then "I want Lake Anne to be awesome...". As a mechanism to illustrate some guiding principles that are likely to achieve a widespread consensus, I think the questionairre is an excellent tool.
I'm not personally any kind of polling, survey, or questionairre expert, but my guess is that we might learn something in the following ways:
First, what's the total participation? How many people actually take the time to fill the thing out?
Second, does the questionairre generate any additional public interest and discussion (other than complaints about it)?
Third, are there any surprises? Do we see something in the answers people provide that we weren't expecting?
Please, though, send me a note and join up to contribute to this blog, a more in depth discussion of the forthcoming trade-offs would be enthusiastically encouraged by me.
Thanks for the quick reply Jeff. While I think that my questionairre responses will be largely predictable, it was informative to me to see some of the specific ideas floating around (cinema, etc...). I've spent the last year moving in--and may not be as concerned about the revitalization effort as all of the 20-year residents around me. So, the questionairre did do the job of letting me know that *something* is going on.
Is there a place that you can point uninformed people like me to what is really going on? I don't really have a feel for what "revitalization" means in this case. If fact, I have a question for you..
What's your best guess at what the final outcome will be?
I realize that it's a hard question to answer. But that answer might help people like me get an idea about what's going on. And I bet that you'll get more interest on this blog if people really know what's at stake.
Dave
I agree...what are they expecting? No, I don't want Landscaping or Accessibility? If this is susposed to guide a developer we're all screwed! The law will require accessability, the historic district will help protect the "look and feel" the only real issue is the only one that know one will address directly! How many people are we talking about? Who are the parties that can enter into a transaction?
"How many people are we talking about?"
I'd love to attempt to answer that but I don't understand what context the question is asked in. Please rephrase.
In terms of property owners, here's my list:
Lake Anne of Reston Condominium
Lutheran Church (Moorings)
Baptist Church (Plaza)
ASBO
Millennium Bank
Crescent Apartments (Winkler Companies)
Reston Association
Fellowship Square
I believe that about covers property owners in the development district.
These owners comprise and are represented by the RCRC, and are the "parties that can enter into a transaction".
There's a lot of good information on the county web site, which is why it's the first link in the links section of this blog. I'd recommend giving it a thotough read.
Sorry for the confusion. The first part of my comment was about the Survey. Everyone is so excited about the amazing consensus, most people have about what they’d like to see on the Plaza. I’m amazed that they are surprised! As I said, who doesn’t want nice Landscaping and well lit walk-ways?
My questing regarding who can enter into a transaction was as you correctly ascertained really about who owns what. I am nervous about a group that calls itself the Lake Anne Village Advocacy group…the reference to hot lava isn’t really very amusing. As I read the email threads on the LAVA Yahoo group it appears that there is clearly a “good” side and a “bad” side, with secret meetings and lies being told and characters being degraded. The strangest thing about it seems to be that very few if any seem to be “able to enter into a transaction.” So in fact the advocacy is for the improvement or maintenance of the standard of life for the surrounding clusters?
Dear Anonymous,
First of all, please feel free to stand up and be counted. In enthusiastic support of your apparent opposition to spurious claims of secrecy, I encourage you to unmask yourself.
The acronym was a coincidence, really, as the discussion of what to call ourselves was entering it's 7th round (see my post of 5/20), and we just settled on the last name offerred to avoid an eighth. Let's not get hung up on it.
The advocacy in question is intended to represent anyone who shares the vision, and while it is clear that owners of property will make decisions on what to do with their property, some of us LAVA people are in fact owners of property in the revitalization district (Tiny little pieces of the Condo, mostly). But even for those who are not, a clearly expressed community vision for development is likely to have at least some influence on what gets done. Smart land owners, and smart developers, will pay attention to what the surrounding community wants, especially if it is communicated in a positive way. That's what LAVA is all about.
WOW, what a great discussion. First of all, regarding the questionnaire, the original goal of LAVA (more on the name later) was to get a majority of the community speaking with a common voice about what was important to many of us throughout the revitalization efforts. Instead of each of us being one voice out of hundreds we wanted to ban together and speak about the things we agree on with a strong voice.
You are taking a lot for granted when you assume everyone whats what you want. There are a lot of vocal residents around the lake who don't want ANY change. I think at least by figuring out what we do agree on then we have a start. And in fact there are some questions whose answers seem obvious to you and me but we are actually seeing a lot of differences. How do we know where we are going unless we start to define it.
We are very much still in the ideas phase right now and debates about more specifics are sure to come, but at least we might be starting from some common place. DOes that make sense?
I think it is natural to want to jump ahead and know what the revitalization will look like, but NOBODY knows... We aren't at that stage yet. That's why this discussion is so important.
Regarding the name (LAVA). Like Jeff said, it was very last minute. But after thinking about it I think it isn't such a bad name. Sure the connotations could be that of distruction, but it could also be that of rebirth. Out of amazing natural disasters, such as volcanoes, come new organic material and new beautiful life. Lake Anne is going to experience a rebirth. It might be a slightly painful process especially for those against change, but I believe that it will be an even more enchanting and beutifull place to live, work and play - as long as the community GETS INVOLVED and makes it happen.
Not to mention that volcanoes are hot and we all think Lake Anne is hot - just in a different way.
-Kimberly
Stand up and be counted…and then ridiculed and derided by the more vocal of your group (on the web yet!), for even offering another perspective…Sorry, I’d like to continue living in relative peace.
Some (not all), have made it quite clear that there are only two positions on this issue…you’re either “fer us or a’ gin us” seems to be the most loudly articulated opinion. But my heartfelt best wishes for your efforts at offering a little more balance.
Peace
Well Anonymous,
I'd personally be more worried about ridicule and derision if I were posting accusations which I would neither claim nor specify. Anonymous comments are welcome here, but the "owned" ones will probably be taken more seriously. (Flat-out empty insults will be deleted).
I (Jeff Crowe, the guy pictured next to my name) think that you are unfairly characterizing the discussion that has occurred so far. In defense of *all* the gentlemen who had what I see as a silly argument in the Yahoo group, they are at least owning their comments, and, thankfully, I think they're all past it now.
In any case, I think that if you give that thread another read, you will not be able to fairly characterize it as one side ridiculing and deriding another side for offering a different perspective.
All perspectives (even anonymous ones), are welcome here, and if somebody wants to ridicule and deride my comments, I'll ignore anything silly and defend myself against any quality ridicule and derision. Sticks and stones may break my bones.
Who, specifically, has made it clear that there are only two sides (fer or a'gin), and in what forum did they do so?
Sticks and stones may break my bones…well I wonder what the Lake Anne Merchants are thinking as they are now being cast as bad guys who want to ruin the Farmers Market for the rest of the community, I wonder how they are feeling as they are receiving forwards of the “lets petition and boycott” email. Even with the retraction and well-written follow-up…don’t you see how bad this can be? If people are willing to publish without verification or if they insist on the use of inflammatory language. It’s hard to put the Jinni back in the bottle. So, yes sticks and stones my break my bones and a few well-placed email could hurt a business.
Your blog entry number 60 was well spoken and I appreciate your sentiments and will not use anonymity to cover nastiness.
At this point the only "publishing" that is going on is here on this Blog. I think the settings of the Yahoo group have been changed so that communications are only visible to members. I think that I agree with you though, in that I found calls for a boycott to be a bit premature.
I for one would like to understand the facts better before supporting, opposing, or ignoring a call for a boycott.
Don't I see how bad what can be? Calls for a boycott, or public calls for a boycott, or public calls for a boycott which use online tools to make the call?
What these online type tools tend to do is simply amplify what people are going to say and do anyway. There's nothing special about the blog that makes it more "bad". More people get to hear someone's knee-jerk reaction to something, maybe. But people are smart, and they know how easy it is to start a blog (hell, if *I* can do it it must be easy), and they take everything with a grain of salt (an extra grain for anonymous postings). It is simply the case that an information revolution has taken place and will continue to change the nature of how we communicate...wishing it weren't so will not change it. It's for this reason that I strongly remind people to be aware of the fact that blog postings and comments are public. But in an effort that is specifically intended to foster accountability, I encourage people to "own" their comments. This is to avoid a kind of silly bitch-fest that this type of thing can devolve into if you aren't careful.
That being said, I am conscious of the fact that there are many views that are, so far, underrepresented on his blog, which is why I like to keep the option of Anonymous posting open. I will leave it that way unless it turns into the silly bitch-fest that I refer to above. Regular bitch-fest is fine.
(A "silly" bitch-fest is defined as one that takes more than about 15 minutes of my time per day to administer. So far, this here blog does not qualify.)
Sorry for the sloppy use of terminology. I am referring to the scary email traffic, which seems to continue. I just hate to see what started as a good thing get used as a way to spread a venomous mind set. Maybe I should have more confidence in people but do you see how quickly things get out of hand?!
Sign me Coward
The questionaire is skewed to imply that there will be construction. The results of most questions will be interpreted as - the new constructions should be like the rest or the new construction should be different - when the real answer is there should be NO NEW CONSTRUCTION. There also is no place on the questionaire to make comments such as NO NEW CONSTRUCTION. I would like to see a neutral questionaire and not a collection of supporting documentation for how to proceed with what the organization already wants to do. Let's have a survey to see if the residents want any changes at all.
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