Marques Miller


I'm Marques Miller. I've been involved with Jungle Hill from the beginning of the community ownership. I have some thoughts to share about how you handle problems of disagreements, so that neighbors don't feel like they are being left out, and that they're part of the project.

There are inevitably those people who disagree, and basically you have to decide on what is the true community consensus, and go with it from there. Basically, we try to involve as many people as we can. If they're making suggestions that aren't acceptable to the group, we try to involve them in the decision making process.

As a matter of fact the one person who's been the most disruptive of it, we have actually invited to be a part of our board of directors because we thought with his input he would understand more of what we were doing and not be quite so quick to to go out and circulate petitions and get people thinking we're doing something other than what we are doing.

And we have adjusted our plans to take into consideration neighborhood objections, like we tried to plant the trees down lower on the hill so that they wouldn't be blocking the view of the people across the street. Also, we gave up the idea of establishing playground of any kind on it because many people objected to something that they thought would attract the less desirable elements of the neighborhood.

What we're really looking for is getting the right decision that will be best for the community and the neighborhood.


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