Rowhouses, Apartments & Townhomes - A Special Community Meeting – Saturday 3/20, 10 am - Taproot Theatre in An important meeting in the Multi-Family Update process is going to take place next Saturday. There are a number of important issues that are up for discussion.
There are a number of features in the current version of the multi-family update that will improve our multi-family housing. They will produce housing with better street frontage, more useful open space, improved public process, and of overall higher design quality. What we have is a great start & we support it wholeheartedly. But today's version of the legislation doesn't go far enough.
The biggest "missing piece" is that our current code is structured in a manner that has a decidedly adverse impact on housing affordability. There are a couple of simple changes that are up for discussion that would significantly improve affordability if they are implemented. But they are also considered "third-rail" issues, & I am concerned that the council will not take them on unless they hear strong support for them in the community (not just the architects and urban planners).
Density Limits:
Currently,
We have asked the council to consider eliminating density limits in all L-zones. The result of this will not be little cracker-box units sprouting up all over
Parking Requirements:
Parking requirements also act as a form of density limit. Current code requires one off-street parking space for each unit. While this might be a sensible requirement for some neighborhoods and some kinds of development, for many of our denser urban neighborhoods, this prevents us from doing the kinds of development that best serve our housing needs. The council is currently studying the idea of reducing or eliminating parking requirements in
What reduced the parking requirements will allow is for small innovations to take place: An old home might be split into three flats without turning the yard into a parking lot, or a conventional townhouse project might include a unit or two with small apartments instead of three story townhomes. There is lots of friction is the system that will tend to hold us to our old way of doing things, but easing up on these requirements will allow innovation to begin & allow new development that produces smaller, more affordable, and less auto-centric housing.
Conclusion:
Our current code hails from 1989. It was written from the point-of-view that no good could come of density and development. It was an attempt to pull up the gangplank & prevent growth pressure from changing the character of our neighborhoods. Ironically, the code did nothing to stop growth, but it did help to make manifest the dystopian vision of what growth would bring. It consigned
A generation later we have very different concerns. As a city we have finally invested in mass-transit infrastructure, and committed ourselves to the goal of making density work. We live in one of the most desirable cities in the world, one that will continue to be a magnet for in-migration for the foreseeable future We want to preserve the character of our single family neighborhoods, but not at the expense of the other half of our city's residents. We want to build quality, affordable, green multi-family neighborhoods as well. Please help us make this happen.
