This quote is the most telling: “Density that effects the lives of other people is not a good thing.”
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Does density ever not affect the lives of other people? It sounds like they’re just saying they hate density as a generality.
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Exactly. It’s like saying, I’m fine with change as long as it has no impact on me.
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And I hope the council takes notes or at least Megan Patton sees through there BS! Nothing satisfies them.
This development is well outside of Boylan Heights. It’s on the other side of the bridge with a residential tower between them. I don’t even understand why they would be included in discussions about it. It will have zero impact on them. That said, I do think 20 story zoning is a little aggressive for that spot. Something 15 stories or under would fit the area better.
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That whole area’s on the cusp of getting intensively developed. 20 will look pretty normal once the Bloc developments and the Bloomsbury lot are built. Otherwise it will just be a hulking shelf of same-y midrises that have to be blocky and use the whole envelope to pencil out.
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I’m not very familiar with development in the area. What else is being built near it? The Bloomsbury is to the south (7 stories) and the Joel Lane house and 2 story town homes to the west. That’s a big jump to go from 2 and 7 stories to a 20 story tower. I’m more in favor of a transition in heights from small scale residential to towers.
Bloomsbury has already been rezoned to 20 stories lmao
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Great question.
So across Boylan, you have this project: Bloomsbury DX-20 Mixed Use Tower - #128 by mike
Plus the Bloc83 expansion: Bloc 83 - One Glenwood, Two Hillsborough, and Phase 3 - #1425 by ahops0428
The Joel Lane block is urban townhomes - pretty normal for those to live next to towers in any reasonably-sized city.
This is the view from the closest SFH in Boylan Heights, I think they’re going to be ok re: shadows
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There is a building across the street from this rezoning request named the TheBloomsbury. It’s is a brick 7 story residential tower. I used to live there.
Bloomsbury Estates (the pseudo-Victorian condo building from before the Great Recession) is one thing. The Bloomsbury is the rezoning-approved 20-story apartment project that was initially 7 stories, but the other half of the block (former Calavera and Moonlight Pizza) was rezoned for 20 stories for a different project first (Bloc83 next phase), so the Bloomsbury had a new rezoning for 20 stories. Boylan Heights folks turned out to complain about both (and honestly probably the Bloomsbury Estates too, but I didn’t live here then). And both got approved by the previous Council. I’m sure they’re hoping if they make noise again, this new Council will block the rezoning for them. We’ll see.
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I think the new council make-up is ‘5-4’ in favor of the more development friendly council…am I wrong on this assumption?
I believe it is the other way around, 5-4 with “concerns” about all the development, rezoning, traffic, historic whatever, etc. Whether it’s more about slowing down approvals but ultimately granting them, or a smokescreen to just deny everything, we’ll have to wait and see.
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Anyone else notice that NONE of the entire city council has any sort of actual business background? NO business owners of any kind. Mary Black won’t even post here ‘job’ on the City’s website. If she actually had a real job, should be pretty easy to post that when she took her picture.
The most recent elected officials don’t appear to have (or had) any real jobs or relevant business experience to speak of for years (very concerning IMO).
I have already heard from others who have met her, Christina Jones is completely out of her league & should have never been elected. She ran on the anger of Hayes Barton & apparently nobody actually vetted her. Apparently they could have put a cat on the ticket & it would have beaten David Knight.
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also telling wrt wral’s copy editing
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So I’m just going to jump in here to say that 20 stories in this area isn’t in line with the city’s 2030 comprehensive plan. Not saying I either agree or disagree with the rezoning, because I honestly don’t care. But, presumably this comprehensive plan exists for a reason? Or was it a waste of money that isn’t going to be followed? Does it need to be updated?
I’m all for development and building density in the downtown area- where it should be. But I can also appreciate having some level of planning that is followed.
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I think the point of it is kinda just to set a baseline saying we at least want something like this.
It’s a good point…Certainly tons of effort and expense was outlayed to create the Comp Plan and while it’s somewhat suspect to not expect some development exceptions, it’s also concerning to see what appears to be a growing number of cases that are pushing beyond the scope of what should’ve been anticipated by the Comp Plan…From a neighborhood perspective, I can certainly understand the desire to have a long range planning doc that guides expectation…
Seems there should be some process tweaks so both citizens and developers can have better and more efficient guardrails for responsible growth…? For example - why shouldn’t a rezoning request at least require a massing example? I’m not saying every aspect of the end build should be set at rezoning but visual expectation of the set backs / mass of these large developments would seemingly help ground discussions, seems to me.
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I get the opposition if this was on the other side of the train tracks, but this site just doesn’t seem that close to Boylan neighborhood. Also The Coleman Group (the 20-story Bloomsbury Apts developer) also owns the sites in red and said that would be a future project as well. Seems like density is a good fit here.
If the concern is traffic, then why not explore mitigations for that? Mini traffic circles for each of the Boylan Ave intersections? Speed humps?
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Baseline and finalized and approved during a city council that was anti-growth and anti-housing through and through.
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