OK, I'm almost done

I mean, I really don't want to keep writing about this Kappa Alpha thing, but Blake's got a good post about it at his blog (and he even mentions little old me).

I think his take on this is pretty reasonable, and one I don't disagree with. And I hope that in my defense of KA's private property rights that I haven't come out as too critical of the positive actions that were taken by the Athens Heritage Foundation or the residents of the neighborhood. I do agree that the appropriate and polite thing to do would have been for KA to continue to work with the neighborhood, but I also accept the realities that KA had to make an immediate economic decision (which checks out based on folks I've talked to). It's unfortunate, but something they were well within their rights to do.

We could rehash this over and over again, but two things caught my eye in Blake's post that are worth pondering. Carl Jordan proposed adding demolition projects to the Neighborhood Notification Initiative, which I think is an absolutely excellent idea.

Kelly Girtz suggested tightening regulations on demolitions, and I can be persuaded to be on board with that notion too (depending on how strict the regulations will be). For instance, requiring a public notification and waiting period of a predetermined, reasonable amount of time makes perfect sense to me. Restricting demolition in a capacity that would undermine private property rights through unnecesary fees or restrictions on types of demolition, however, would not sit right with me.