READERS RITE: People's Visioning, apartments without windows, Hoppe duplicity

On Crime Free Housing Awards
Great to see landlords getting recognition for providing safe housing.   Thanks for publicizing.

-- Tim Kridel, Columbia 

 

About the Grindstone Trail controversy, I think everyone's missing the point.   Get About Columbia and numerous trail supporters wanted to build a $440,000 trail that started on 6th Ward Councilwoman Barb Hoppe's street, Bluff Dale, and then went on to Clyde Wilson Park & Rollins Road -- same as the proposed Shepard-Rollins Trail Mrs. Hoppe now wants.

 

Hoppe killed 2005 Parks Tax Trail as this document states.   Now, she's getting grief from everyone about what she has done and is looking for an alternative.

 

Unfortunately, the alternative means a $1.7 million dollar trail that winds down a bluff!    Hoppe and the neighbors cited damage to the environment as one reason to kill the earlier trail,  but Hoppe's new trail will bulldoze a 50-100 foot path through a heavy forest.  Plus, it goes through the Altis property and may end up requiring condemnation.  

 

Why should we as taxpayers have to pay $1.3 million more for a trail that the parks department said they could build for $440,000 in 2005?   -- Tim Paul, Columbia    

 

Document referenced: 

http://www.gocolumbiamo.com/Council/Minutes/documents/cm08_jul22_special.pdf

 

 

Error in our article on People's Visioning
Thanks again for a great article.   Two clarifications, because of differences between Missouri and Indiana. I was the County Recorder in Bloomington, Indiana. The County Clerk is a related, but different, position in Indiana. In Indiana, the Recorder deals almost exclusively with real estate records, while the Clerk deals heavily with the Court system records.  I was also on County Council, as opposed to being a County Commissioner. -- Sam Allison, People's Visioning Team  

On Brookside apartments without windows

Regarding egress windows. Most people are familiar with the requirements for residential construction under the International
Residential Code, which was referenced in most of the links included below.   The apartments in question are covered under the commercial construction code, the International Building Code.   The requirements are starkly different as these are fully sprinkled buildings with planned egress.  I can assure you that city plan reviewers and the fire marshal both take this seriously, and both enforce the fire code judiciously.  -- Patrick Earney, Columbia

About a reader letter decrying new apartments without bedroom windows
I don’t know what the code says, but I know the basement under Cool Stuff (now Rally House) is home to I believe four or five apartments, and none of them have any windows. I have often wondered who would want to live in a windowless apartment, but my guess is that it’s a personal taste/aesthetic issue, but not a code violation.
-- Mark Haim, Columbia


I own two buildings downtown. A bedroom in an apartment does not have to have a window. I believe that it does have to have a closet. Pretty strange, huh? Thanks for the Columbia Heart Beat. Always read your communications with interest. I enjoy your perspective.
-- Alex Waigandt , Columbia


Building codes and windows in bedrooms
http://www.gocolumbiamo.com/Council/Columbia_Code_of_Ordinances/Chapter_6/15A.html
http://www.iccsafe.org/iccforums/pages/default.aspx?action=ViewPosts&fid=6&tid=22238
http://www.finehomebuilding.com/how-to/articles/code-violations-emergency-egress-windows.aspx
http://www.aacounty.org/ip/pac/coderequire.cfm
http://www.bomankemp.com/coder310.html



Why don’t you do an investigation on why the Hickman and Rock Bridge Homecoming parades were cancelled? This is the last time these seniors will ever get the opportunity to be in their homecoming parade.
-- Paul Blythe, Columbia
[Ed. Note: I understood the parades were cancelled because of SEC game conflicts.]


I was responding to an assertion that the Laurie family doesn't donate to local causes. I know for a fact that they've donated to the Front Door and purchased an ambulance for MU Children's Hospital. They make many, many anonymous donations and prefer to keep it that way.

As you may remember the $25 million for Mizzou Arena was an "anonymous" donation for many months, even when I passed the bill in the House by one vote.

It's just their preference to keep many of their charitable donations anonymous and certainly their right to do so.
-- Chuck Graham, Columbia
[Mr. Graham is a former Missouri state Representative and Senator. The reader letter he refers to was less an assertion and more a question, about whether or not the richest local citizens donate to charitable causes.]