Humanize the Earth!

zoning good news!

This is a follow-up to my last post on zoning.  In that post I told you how our architect was going to put the average ceiling height on the drawings to address the legal-floor-area issue (Zoning says 6′9″ is legal so if we’re below that, we’re increasing floor area, which is an issue - Permits says legal has to be 7′6″ which is why we’re in this mess to begin with).  Peter (the architect) did that and it still wasn’t good enough.  He then produced a sort of inverted topographical map of the ceiling which today was accepted!

What does this mean?

We got our denial today.  This means we can finally file an appeal.  The denial lists 4 issues so we’re asking for 4 variations to the zoning ordinance.

1. Reduce the required rear yard from 30′ to 0′ since that’s where the entire rear building sit anyway.
2. Reduce the northside yard from 4′ to 2′11″ since that’s the amount of passageway we have to the alley right now.
3. Reduce the combined side yard from 10′ to 2′11″ for the same reason as #2 (we have no southside yard b/c we’re on the corner and that’s the sidewalk on that side.
4. Increase allowable floor area by less than 15%.  This is because some (small portion) of the ceiling is less than 6′9″.  If it were more than a 15% increase, we’d have a big problem

So our attorney, Mark Kupiec will now file the appeal and send us a copy and then he’ll send a letter of notification of filing to our neighbors.  Once the appeal application is accepted, we’ll be given public hearing notice signs for our windows and the Zoning Board will send another notification to our neighbors with the date/time of the hearing, most likely sometime in July.

The World We Want

Last year, I answered some questions about the World We Want with My Vision of a Better World The conversation has continued and I recommend that you read Open Letter to H. Peter Karoff part of which says:

A little money goes a very long way when people are hungry for democracy. Just open a crack, give them an excuse, and don’t make it too fancy, or formal or stilted.

Michiana Community Currency Initiative

In a comment on my post about expiration dates for currency, Doug points to the Michiana Community Currency Initiative:

• Do you want more choices about what you can do for a living?
• Do you want to feel part of a local community?
• Do you own a local business & want more customers?

Very cool stuff. Arthur and Gerry have been talking a lot about reputation currencies and lots of other types of systems to encourage flows, some that look like money and others that do not. Lots more to come in this area, as it develops.

Thanks, Doug!

Bike the Drive on Sunday

Michael reminds me:

Enjoy a morning of peaceful, car-free Lake Shore Drive with amazing views of Chicago’s lakefront and skyline. This Sunday is our annual (legal) opportunity to take over the Drive with our bicycles. C’mon out and join us!

And where we gonna meet up, Ted?

I actually haven’t ridden this ride since the very first year, when meeting up with Michael was planned but sadly didn’t happen. Let’s try it again! I have to get myself registered and check ou the logistics. Let’s make a plan by phone and then publish so others can join us.

Principle of Adaptation

From the Principles of Valid Action:

1. The Principle of Adaptation

“To go against the evolution of things is to go against yourself.”

Tonight we had a great Breathing In conference call about this principle. Of the seven people, two were completely new to the calls, one hasn’t been around for about a year and one never used to miss calls at all, but she hasn’t been around since about January.  Everything just all seemed to come together.  We shared expereinces from our lives related to this principle and talked a lot about “Oneness,” how we all are one.  If you’d like to join us for our next call, please let me know so we make sure to have enough phone lines set up.  June 12th 8pm in Chicago.

art and race

mousemusings (cool stuff even after after months and months in my drafts folder):

[…] At the black console on the second floor of the American Visionary Art Museum, he tries to align his face with a grid that stares back at him from behind the glass-enclosed front of the machine, which looks like a minimalist version of a mall photo booth.He clicks a mouse and a screen shows a grainy black-and-white picture of the 30-year-old student, who has olive skin, a long, rounded nose, large eyes and a full mouth.

Within seconds, the machine morphs his image, projecting color photos of how Hawthorne, who considers himself white, would look if he were Asian, black, Hispanic, East Indian and Middle Eastern. Hawthorne, a fine-arts major at Shepherd University in Shepherdstown, W.Va., says he sees a bit of himself in each picture.

That’s exactly what SoHo artist Nancy Burson was going for. […]

The machine, the artist said, is based on one philosophy: that the similarities between people of various races far outweigh the differences. To Burson, who is white, there aren’t different races, just one — the human race, she said. The best way to show that, she thought, would be to give people the chance to manipulate their ethnicity and see themselves differently, even if only momentarily. […]

“Somebody [recently] said to me, ‘There’s no gene for race.’ And I said: ‘What? Why don’t we know that? Why isn’t this information out there?’ I thought the information was so huge and I still do, and I don’t think people understand that.” […]

Silo’s Message - Chicago

My friend Sharon has a new blog: Silo’s Message - Chicago where she’s inviting people to her place on Saturday evenings for ceremonies and socializing.

New Housing Affordability Standards?

The federal guidelines for “affordable housing” say that for housing to be “affordable” it should cost no more than 30% of your income. One problem with this standard is that it does not take into account another huge portion of many people’s expenses: transportation. Many people are spending hundreds of dollars per month commuting, while others live in transit-friendly locations where commuting costs end up much lower.

The Center for Neighborhood Technology has been working on a more accurate, wholistic measure of affordablily.  On their blog, they write about How High Gas Prices Drive Up the Cost of Housing:

“The old maxim, ‘Drive till we can afford it,’ may be softening,” said Michael Noonan, division president for one of the top national home builders operating in the Twin Cities area and a vice president of the Builders Association of the Twin Cities. “The rising cost of gas is adding a dimension that people didn’t used to consider as carefully as they do today.”Some organizations are working to encourage consumers’ awareness about commuting costs before they buy. In fact, the Twin Cities area may become ground zero in a national movement to help homeowners understand the true cost of home ownership.

Inverted Networking - connect me with Chicago folks?

Michael writes:

I’m starting a new practice, which I’m calling Nestworking, an inverted or locally-focused sort of networking.For years, I’ve been expanding a global network of friends and colleagues. Now I want to actively request the good people I know around the world to connect me with interesting people they know or meet from Chicago. In this way, I want to turn my network back in on itself, and use it to help me find others who are active in global conversations — AND living and working here in town.

Mostly we think of extending networks, but this is a sort of local thickening, the practice of which has been new to everyone I’ve asked about it. Seems promising in a region of eight million or more people. I want to find those who live simultaneously in Chicago and in bigger global circles.

Who do you know is making good in Chicago and the world? This might be a quiet little series of connecting conversations or blossom as the next generation of GlobalChicago networking. Who do you think I should I know in Chicago?

This idea came up at dinner a couple of weeks ago and it must’ve been Michael’s idea.  Or at least he’s the first one to put it into practice that I know about.  I make the same request of you.  Who do you know in Chicago that I should know.  I pledge to follow-up with each connection with an invitation for coffee at the very least.

Permanent Global War

Do you know Ogoni?  Ken Saro-Wiwa came into my conciousness in about 1994 when both Amnesty International and Greenpeace published action alerts about his situation in Nigeria. This was the first time I’d ever seen the same name from both organizations.  Sara-Wiwa stood up to Shell Oil’s degredation of the Ogoni lands and their support of a brutal Nigerian government.  That government executed Saro-Wiwa and 8 of his fellows.  I help his nephew Charles with http://nuos-ogoni.org.  Here’s a post linking this story from Nigeria with the larger global war.
From: Global Guerrillas: BURNING DOWN THE HOUSE IN NIGERIA

The problem with dynamically unstable systems, like our current global social and economic environment, is that once they lock into a feedback loop they are almost impossible to control. As quickly as you move to dampen one problem others emerge. Eventually, these problems multiply, overwhelming the controller’s ability to mitigate their impact and the entire system fragments.