Category: Blog Post

License

If you scroll to the bottom of this page, you will see that my content is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0. This means that while my work may not be used for anything commercial, anyone is free to use, share, and remix my content, provided they give me proper attribution (a link or my name). Additionally, you cannot restrict other people from doing things this license permits. I have set these terms because I work hard on things! Ownership is important to me, and I would like people to know that I was responsible for my content. But at the same time, I know that society is improved when we can comment and build upon the work of others. As long as people are reasonable and respectful, do whatever the heck you want with my stuff.

Images

The two images you currently see on my blog site, the header image and site icon, were both chosen from Pixabay. I chose the image of water for my header mostly because I like the way it looks. It’s simple, but colorful and dynamic. I also chose it because I have strong positive associations with water. It reminds me of childhood beach trips and vacations. I chose a pencil to be my site icon because I love to create things, and a pencil is one of the most basic artistic tools, but so much can be done with it. I also like it because it looks like the pencils my art teacher would force us to use in elementary school. I hated them because they had no erasers, but they served their purpose and made us draw carefully.

My name is Katy. I have been freed from the oppressive monarchy of Cartland’s blog, and I’m ready to establish my own identity and build up a presence on the internet, so I have named my domain after myself: katyfield.net. I’m not sure yet what I’ll do with my newfound freedom, but I look forward to exploring and experimenting. Stick around to see what I come up with!

What is it?

The Fredericksburg Neighborhood Coalition is a group of community members who get together to actively address issues. In these gatherings they discuss transportation, housing, and neighborhood development. Their goal is to unite to create a voice for the Fredericksburg community.

Evaluation

Hyperbole is a local news company that wrote an article about ADU. This is a plan that the Fredericksburg Neighborhood Coalition came up with and it highlights their allegations that the City Council has discussed.

The Free-Lance Star is a daily newspaper that is located in Fredericksburg. They wrote an article detailing The Fredericksburg Neighborhood Coalitions plan regarding ADU.

Link to the evaluated site: “The Coalition.”

A brief description of the organization:

The Coalition, as I understand it from the initial website, is a community based group dedicated to addressing housing related issues, as well as transportational and economic. Looking further to outside sources, the Fredericksburg Neighborhood Coalition is a group started by Fredericksburg residence to find a way to balance the amount of short term rental housing and single family homes. Renting is up in Fredericksburg, and they are looking to stop the zoning of ADU’s to prevent their single family homes being turned to rentals. They are looking to local officials to do something about this crisis. 

Two sites that assisted me in my evaluation: 

Community Group Alleges City Council Hiding ADU Agenda

This website elaborates on how ADU’s will be introduced as a means of making Fredericksburg housing more affordable. It covers the reasons for the coalition as it explains the problem of short-term rentals and the locals disdain for them as they threaten the “character” and “charm” of the city.  This particular site gave more insight into the how’s and why’s of the coalitions origins and objectives.

Fredericksburg City Council to vote on first read of ADU ordinance

This webisite covered the logistics to what the Fredericksburg city council is voting on in terms of zoning ADU’s . It expresses the fears of the coalition, such as when they state that the “Fredericksburg Neighborhood Coalition believe that the proposed ADU ordinance will encourage developers to buy up the city’s stock of single-family homes and convert them to rentals.” they provide facts connected to this fear, like how Fredericksburg has the highest rental rate in the state of Virginia. They also link to the initial site evaluated, thus aiding in its validation.

What is the meaning of the Virginia Neighborhood Coalition and what is their intention?

What I gathered from the organizations site:

The Virginia Neighborhood Coalition is an outlet and group of members who live in the fredericksburg community that work together to express concerns regarding housing, transportation and developments in the area. This group works together to promote a better way of life and create agendas that they believe is best for Fredericksburg. The hot topic at the moment for the group, is the the rezoning by the ADU. They are adding more housing developments in single family neighborhoods. The organization thinks this is terrible idea and will overpopulate and distort their city. For more information about the Coalition and how to join, visit the Frederericksburg Neighborhood Coalition Website.

How trust worthy is this organization?

One source says that the ADU rezoning is actually something that a lot of residents wanted. The development would actually fix a lot of the residential problems and not change the character of existing residential neighborhoods. This was an article by the Free lance star, a local newspaper for the fredericksburg area. To read more about the alternative side, review the article.

Another source I read kinda changed my perspective. At first when I was reading through the initial article and then going through the others to disprove it; I realized that a site doesn’t have to be flat out wrong. The next article I read goes into a little bit more detail about concerns through a back and fourth arguments and compromises. The council tries to come up with compromises to combat this group but the group is more worried about making a it a right, instead of something that they can object on a by- property basis. I think that the organization has concern about the intention and wanting something in place to uphold the ADU from doing things that can horrendously alter their neighborhoods. You can find more information about the ADU meeting at the Freelance star website.

The Fredericksburg Neighborhood Coalition description

• The Fredericksburg Neighborhood Coalition is a group of neighborhoods and other community members fighting a current proposed ADU ordinance, which was proposed as a means to make Fredericksburg housing more affordable.
• ADUs, or Acessory dwelling units, are secondary housing units or apartments that share a lot of a larger primary residence that cannot be bought or sold separately.
• The coalition’s primary concern pertains to the current high number of renters, essentially saying that permitting ADUs will increase this number altogether and take away from single families.

Who can confirm this?

• Many articles on the Free-Lance Star, a local and daily newspaper in Fredericksburg, confirmed the Fredericksburg Neighborhood Coalitions position on the proposed ordinance. In their article, Fredericksburg City Council to vote on first read of ADU ordinance, they detail the current plan of action with the ADU and mention the group as major point in opposition to the ordinance and their encouragement of other community members to oppose.
• My Hyperbole, a local news and production agency, wrote an article called Community Group Alleges City Council Hiding ADU Agenda. This article gives insight into the ADU plan while highlighting the Fredericksburg Neighborhood Coalition and mentions explicitly their allegations that the City Council hid this agenda and held private meetings.

What is the Coalition?

The Fredericksburg Neighborhood Coalition is a group of community members who use this website to advocate for the members of the city of Fredericksburg in relation to “housing, transportation, and economic development.” Their main issue is with the development of ADU’s for single-family households. You can find more information at the Fredericksburg Neighborhood Coalition website.

Is it Trustworthy?

Although the website created by the Fredericksburg Neighborhood Coalition is clearly an opinionated website, I believe it is a trustworthy site. Since it is opinionated, the reader has to be careful in order to not let the clear bias of the website skew their understanding of the facts. I reviewed two other sources which are the Hyperbole – Community Group Alleges City Council Hiding ADU Agenda and The Free Lance-Star – Proposed ADU ordinance fails in City Council. Both of these sites confirmed the proposal for ADU’s in the Fredericksburg area. From the hyperbole article, “DC consultant and Fredericksburg City Council member Jason Graham, who represents Ward 1 which includes Central Park and the Idlewild neighborhood, has laid out his support for the ADU ordinance with the claim that it would increase the number of prospective buyers without creating a ‘bonanza’ for real estate investors and that there’s ‘no risk’ to renters acting disorderly ‘without consequence.'” From the Free Lance-Star, “The planning department has identified 88 ADUs currently existing throughout the city, many of them in the downtown historic district and College Heights neighborhood, and notes that this is not a definitive list.”

Openness

Why?

Openness is important for the web you want everyone who has access to the internet to be able to interact with one another. All people should be able to utilize the features on different sites. This allows everyone to communicate freely.

How?

There are many ways to make the internet more accessible . We can do this through global sharing. One way is through global sharing. This would make the internet more accessible for those in need.

Accessibility

Why?

You want the internet to be accessible to everyone that way no one is discriminated against.

How?

Screen readers, captions, and audio can make a page more accessible.