But the proposed building is an unforgivable deviation from the guidelines. Telfair would span York Street Lane with an enormous bridge 56 feet wide and 32 feet tall, about the size of two small houses. The guidelines permit a bridge no more than eight feet wide. The town plan is more than an archaeological artifact from the 18th century. In our busy and crowded world 200 years later, the plan's small building lots help limit the scale of new construction.
Today there is enormous pressure to overbuild.
In the last year the Review Board has seen about a dozen new hotel projects, each pushing to be as large as possible. If the Telfair builds over the lane, a perilous precedent will be established. Soon other big builders, a hotel or corporation not so public-spirited as Telfair, but like the museum, with rich and powerful people behind it, will hire a celebrity architect, proclaim the building a gift to the city and necessary for civic progress, and demand to bridge another lane, then another and another. Unless future lane-bridgings are restricted the scale of new buildings will overwhelm the modest old streetscapes and also create problems with too many cars and trucks. The Telfair proposes to build without any provision for parking.