A Lot of Issues are at Play
Two other issues currently simmering at City Hall add context to our story.
City officials are in the early stages of crafting a Southwest Fresno Specific Plan. Think of it more as a long overdue growth blueprint for traditional West Fresno. The specific plan’s footprint covers five square miles. Many of the long-established residential neighborhoods of West Fresno aren’t part of those 3,200 acres. But plan’s charge is to spur the transformation of this part of historic Fresno, too.
West Fresno is on the west side of Highway 99. Chinatown is next to West Fresno, on the east side of 99.
You get the picture – a desolate and ignored Chinatown is located in a high-profile spot between a rejuvenating Downtown and a West Fresno on the path to a renaissance.
Then there is the $70 million in state Cap & Trade money headed Fresno’s way.
The spending guidelines are still being debated. All of the money (including any matching funds from the city) will go toward popular but hazy public needs such as combating pollution, improving people’s health and expanding economic opportunity.
But where to spend the money? The state will require that much of the $70 million go into projects near the bullet train depot. City officials are already dreaming about the blessings of multi-million-dollar subsidies to private-sector development projects along Fulton Corridor and throughout the South Stadium area. In other words, Downtown.
At the same time, powerful community activists are lobbying here and in Sacramento to substantially liberalize the money’s spending rules. West Fresno neighborhoods relatively far from the bullet train depot have immense infrastructure and social needs. The activists don’t want a narrow niche of Downtown hogging all that Cap & Trade dough.
Chinatown? Chinatown doesn’t appear to be a high priority for that $70 million, and the area’s business owners know it.
“We’re in between,” said Paul Pearson, owner of Chef Paul’s Café on F Street, in the heart of Chinatown. “We’re the stepchildren.”
Adds Kathy Omachi, for many years the heart of soul of Chinatown Revitalization Inc.: “They (city officials) would prefer us not to be around. They have applied to Chinatown what I call the three D’s. They disregard what we bring up. Then they dismiss us. Then they just want to disintegrate (us). Those three D’s, they’re actually happening. You can see what’s going on.”
And where will all of our ‘homeless’ people be along with the rest of the broken window issues? How will these issues be kept out of sight?
On second thought… what would something like this say about Fresno?http://mlf.org/community-first/
The proposed solution to Chinatown about 30 years ago was to condemn it, level it and peddle the vacant land to Ed Kashian to redevelop as a modern commercial area. This idea surfaced after Highway City fought a similar proposal off. The Chinatown folks battled to keep Kashian out. Over the years since, Chinatown has been slowly dying. Quite a few of the older buildings have burned down and the homeless have gradually taken the area over.
I love the free parking in China Town and often go there for a good meal though was saddened when Paris Cafe literally gave up the ghost. I also miss Come & Get It Chicken & Waffles. Give people a reason to go somewhere, and they will go. Wish the city would help small businesses get a foothold in China Town.
I driven through Chinatown yesterday and COULDN’T BELIEVE how decimated and barron it looked. The homeless people took it over smh. I remember going there as a kid. Fish mamasan giving me a toy every time I went into Central Fish. Its very very sad to see the current condition of Chinatown. I’m not really sure if HSR will help it. It will create basically a wall to divide DTF and chinatown.