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Happy Greentree Fest weekend! Pretty light news week, so let's recap last Thursday's City Council meeting and get out of here.
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- The 60-unit mixed-use proposal for the former Commerce Bank site had its public hearing at last Thursday's City Council meeting. You can view the presentation of that project starting at the 20:59 mark of last week's meeting's live stream. A few takeaways:
- Re: a Potential Redesign: (starting at the 30:14 mark) After the Council expressed their, lets call them "reservations, regarding the design of the project, the developer promised to go back to the drawing board architecturally, and then went even further and promised the Council that they were going to give them "something [they've] never seen before on Adams" as part of that redesign. They then alluded to a feature of the recently completed Bemiston Place development in Clayton, which featured some direct-entry, townhome-like units along one facade of the building. The developer alluded to some variances that may be needed to facilitate this. The thing is, the project cannot legally be rejected in current form, so the developer doesn't really have much incentive to change things much, since logically, the plan they presented should be the one that maximized their profits. If the Council wants something "special", then they need to communicate to the developer what it is they're willing to grant them more flexibility on to return that value: "If you figure out a way to activate the Adams street front, we'll grant you a variance on ". Otherwise the developers are just going to tell their architect to tweak a few things and call it a day.
- The NIMBYs were OUT!: (starting at the 57:40 mark) The Mayor had to ask them not to clap. They urged the Council to... break the law? They threatened that if the Council didn't break the law, they'd vote them out? They held up Webster as an example to emulate? Someone said "The Battle for Kirkwood is Here Tonight!" and seemed to mean it? One guy said he liked the way the old Commerce Bank building looked even though it looked like even though it looked like a funeral home? It was weird man!
- An Irresponsible SBD: The Downtown Kirkwood Special Business District (SBD) even had some concerns while noting that they like the taxes the development would bring. If the SBD had any sort of history speaking in favor of additional housing projects in the neighborhood, then fair enough, try to make the project better. But this is the first time I've ever heard them testify! And somehow they chose to testify against a project that will be unambiguously good for both the SBD the businesses they represent, not only thanks to the tax revenue, but also the larger customer and employee pool that comes with more people living nearby.
- What's Next: The Mayor placed the first vote for this project on the Council's October 2nd agenda. Like I said, I think legally, the Council has to pass this, but I'd be lying if I told you I wasn't a little worried. If you can show up to that meeting to speak in favor of housing, it would go a long way towards combatting the impression that the people of Kirkwood are universally in opposition to new homes and welcoming economic development (even if you have some reservations about the particulars of this project's design).
- The meeting also featured some really disappointing news on the parking-front as the Council voted down a contract with local company Fybr to install sensors that would've aided in the enforcement of time-limited spots. More on this soon, but the Council needs to figure out 1) what its goal is here and 2) what it's willing to give up to achieve that goal. Governing, after all, is about tradeoffs, and so far this Council has been unable to choose how they want to address parking.
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