Update 01/27/2023: Good news! Kirkwood will, in fact, be pursuing Phase 1B in this year's call for STP grant proposals according to next week's City Council agenda. The proposal matches that which I outlined below, running from Fillmore to Leffingwell. The city is asking for $1,731,310 in Federal funding and will match that share, should… Continue reading Grant’s Trail: More Work to Do
Happy 2023 Kirkwood, thanks for another great year. In 2022 we: Approved 60 new homes and additional retail via the Kirkwood Apartments Began construction on another 152 homes and retail via The James Completed construction on The Hutton's 12 homes Finished 24 townhomes along Big Bend known as The Townes at Geyer Grove These were… Continue reading How To Adjust To The Remote Work Era
Update: 9/13/2023 The diet is happening and the plan is to follow all the established best urbanist practice save for the fact that the lanes should be 10-ft wide rather than 12, but we fight on! Here's Council Member Gibbons with the update: At the work session last week, the Council reviewed new plans for… Continue reading Getting Over the Line: A Road Diet Update
Update 09/13/2023: At the work session last week, the Council reviewed new plans for narrowing Kirkwood Road from Adams to Bodley. Based on lessons learned from the demonstration project, the new plans call for 12-foot, single lanes going north and south and a 14-foot, center, turning lane. There will be no parallel parking on either side of Kirkwood Road. The proposal includes 6-foot sidewalks… Continue reading Kirkwood Rd Needs a Diet
Recently, I've been proposing ideas to add to Kirkwood's housing supply, including reforms to our minimum lot size requirements, and an overhaul of our ADU rules. Even more recently, I laid out a process by which we could make public transit a more useful asset in Kirkwood and curb the relationship between added density and… Continue reading A Denser Downtown Needs Better Parks
Last Thursday, as the seven city council members offered their thoughts on the Kirkwood Apartments project, something seemed to be afoot. The approval of the project was a forgone conclusion. The developers had crossed their t's and dotted their i's and had come up with a proposal in full compliance with the city's code. The… Continue reading So You Want Affordable Housing…
Noticeably absent from my series on attainable housing in Kirkwood was Transportation Oriented Development (TOD). Transportation Oriented Development is the idea that it makes the most sense to add housing around places that have access to public transit. That way you can reap the benefits of additional housing without absorbing as much of the costs… Continue reading Kirkwood TOD: Cutting the Gordian Knot
This piece is part two of a series on workable policy solutions to address the shortage of attainable housing in Kirkwood. Part one, on reforming our minimum lot size regulations, can be found here. I've been working on Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) policy a lot for my day job recently and the more I've delved… Continue reading Attainable Housing Part 2: ADUs
This is Part 1 of a series on politically-workable ways to add housing in Kirkwood and make living here more attainable. This piece covers the topic of minimum lot sizes and lot splitting, while Part 2 covers ADUs (Accessory Dwelling Units). Last August, Webster voters killed the two-family zoning provision that their elected representatives on… Continue reading Attainable Kirkwood Part 1: Minimum Lot Sizes
Update: 03/03/2023 New renderings have been made available for 60 apartments coming to 300 N. Kirkwood Rd. Of greatest note is the inclusion of balconies for the first time, a change that Kirkwood's City Council encouraged the developers to explore during the hearing. We also have gotten our first rendering of the building's pool deck:… Continue reading Kirkwood Apartments Coming to Downtown
