HUMPHREYS & PARTNERS LP
Rendition of Munson plan.
Mayor Toni Harp is urging alders to proceed with plans to approve a zoning change to allow 385 new apartments to be built in Newhallville.
The zoning change from IH (for heavy industry) to RH‑2 (for residential), already approved by the City Plan Commission, would enable a California developer to turn an abandoned former Olin-Winchester factory site at 201 Munson into clusters of the new apartments, from two-story buildings near the street to four stories deeper in the lot.
The matter comes before the Board of Alders Legislation Committee this Thursday night.
The developers, operating under a limited liability corporation called Double A Development Partners, have spent months meeting with local alders and community management teams. That paid off when a variety of neighbors and leaders supported the zone change at a Nov. 15 City Plan Commission meeting. (Read about that here.)
Since then some other neighbors and activists, at a meeting held last week at Varick AME Zion Church, called for slowing down the process. Instead of a zone change, the developers should seek approval a new planned development district (PDD), which would allow the public to establish more detailed ground rules for what could be built on the property. The concern was that if this plan doesn’t materialize, a new developer could come in and build a project too dense or otherwise not acceptable to the neighborhood.
Other neighbors stuck with support for the zone change, arguing that they like the plan and the city needs the jobs and tax revenue. The plan also includes having 10 percent of the new apartments reserved at “affordable” rents. Switching to a PDD process could add up to another year of an approval process that is otherwise nearing its end.
Speaking on her latest appearance on WNHH radio’s “Mayor Monday” program, Harp summoned the spirit of the late cartoonist Charles M. Schulz as she agreed with staying the course and approving the zone change.
“It’s sort of like Lucy and football: As soon as you get close to the goal line, “Oh, you should do this! Oh, you should do that!’” Harp said.
“The [developers] have gone to the community management teams. That was the vehicle. They’ve talked to a number of the alders and got approval from them. Now another gorup comes up and says, ‘You’ve got to do this.’ If they get to that and another group says, ‘You’ve got to do that’ — at some point we have to make a decision, and it will be over.”