POSITION PAPER NO. 1
(*UPDATED as of JUNE 23, 2005)
Why There MUST Be a
Moratorium on Blueprint Brunswick
Pending a Vote of the People
*On June 23, 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court, in its decision on EMINENT DOMAIN in Kelo v. New London, gave the City’s Blueprint Brunswick developers absolute power to carry out their design to bulldoze the homes of black and poor Brunswick residents to make room for big development and make profits for rich developers!—Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who wrote the Dissent, declared: “The specter of condemnation hangs over all property. Nothing is to prevent the state [city] from replacing…any home with a shopping mall….”
1. Blueprint Brunswick’s “Historic Norwich District Redevelopment Plan” targets residents in 135 blocks of the predominantly black and poor section of the city for displacement.
- The Norwich Plan, largest of the Blueprint Brunswick “catalyst sites,” encompassing T Street (north), Martin Luther King, Jr., Boulevard (east), Gloucester Street ( south) and Newcastle Street (west), is 78% black, with 57% living at or below the poverty line (p. 11 of the Plan), and 56% renters (p. 15).
- The Norwich Plan’s “Objective #1” (p. 19) is to “promote the acquisition and rehabilitation of tax delinquent, unoccupied, or renter-occupied property for conversion to owner-occupied units.”
- “Objective #2” is to “acquire and demolish existing unoccupied and dilapidated structures to provide sites for new infill housing units” in order to clear the way for “public and private land assembly for new construction” (p. 69).
- In an auxiliary document, “Blueprint Brunswick, A Development Strategy…,” this “land assembly” in the Norwich Corridor is referred to as development of “SUPERBLOCKS!”
- The Plan identifies the means for property acquisition as “negotiated purchases …condemnation and…eminent domain proceedings….”(pp.s 71-72).
- At a June 20, 2005, meeting at Blueprint Brunswick board member Rev. Herman Pride’s Brunswick Second Presbyterian Church, CEO Bryan Thompson acknowledged: “Anyone living in a house [in the Corridor] with floors coming up, a dilapidated structure, roof leaking, who cannot bring their homes up to Code will have to be relocated…and their homes will be torn down.”
2. Blueprint Brunswick undermines the basic civil rights of Brunswick citizens. Citizenship arises from residency not homeownership, and Brunswick residents have had no voice or vote in this matter which so affects their very lives, residency and civil rights.
3. There is nothing in the Blueprint Brunswick plan addressing the Gullah/Geechee lands. The National Trust for Historic Preservation has identified hundreds of miles of the southeastern coast as Gullah/Geechee lands, and deemed them among the “most endangered,” discouraging development on Gullah/Geechee burial grounds, historic sites, etc. (2004 Report).
Elaine Brown knows that housing in Brunswick can be renewed without displacement of residents and she has a vision for such an improvement plan!