The road to hell is paved by U of A: This is your "asfault": Tarred and feathered: "Paved paradise and put up a parking lot"

We couldn't help including all of the creative titles we could think of for this one.

The Star's Becky Pallack has blogged on this story and has some great before and after pictures of the neighborhood linked to the article.

When UA needs more parking, where do they turn? The historical neighborhood of Rincon Heights. After UA developed a habit of buying perfectly good houses in order to demolish them in the 90s, Rincon Heights worked with the university for 2 years to work out a compromise in which no more buy-and-pave deals should have taken place. UA seems to have broken with that commitment, however, and now plans to knock down even more houses, with no regard for the impact on the community and local environment.

Note the irony: UA touts its new "environmental" rec center, right next door to a big slab of asphalt, one that it plans to expand. Rincon Heights' neighborhood association has dedicated time and money to planting native trees and flowers and to harvest rain water. They even won a prize for it. Now UA wants to pave over their efforts, to make room for a few more cars (nice stance on the environment, UA.)

So far the UA has been unresponsive and highly reluctant to negotiate with the neighborhood association. (Interesting stance on collaboration and mutual respect, coming from an institution that supposedly fosters these values.)

The Rincon Heights residents ask you to pressure the UA administration to honor their agreement with the neighborhood:

Join the cause

"Please email this short message to President Shelton at robert.shelton@arizona.edu:

Don't asphalt Rincon Heights. Honor your agreements with the neighborhood.

If you are a student, please mention it. Many students live in Rincon Heights.

Please ask all your Facebook friends to do the same. We really need to spread the word.

Positions
1. The UA needs to honor its agreement that any activity in our neighborhood will "stabilize and improve the residential character of the neighborhood."
2. The UA should not change our long standing agreement without our consent.
3. The land left vacant by demolition must be restored in an attractive manner: no visual pollution like weed strewn vacant lots or asphalt parking lots"

Your neighborhood could be next.