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
The area around Madison and Monroe, for a while now, has seemed to be the hotbed for development in Kirkwood. As far back as 2004, with the construction of the massive Kirkwood Plaza development, all the way through to today with the development of the Hutton, the final of Savoy's three condo developments along Madison,… Continue reading The Birth of Downtown North
Kirkwood has finally settled on a route to extend Grant's Trail to the city's downtown core. To sum it up, I think the city has done a really nice job with the whole process. The route is the right amount of direct, enjoyable, flat, and practical (by which I mean: I think the city and… Continue reading Grant’s Trail and Our Industrial Wasteland
A couple of weeks ago, I reviewed some of the insights that could be gleaned from the failed Proposition 1 vote. This week, I want to offer some ideas to fill the funding hole Prop 1 left. As I said then, Kirkwood still has potholes to fill, bike lanes to stripe, and trails to construct.… Continue reading Leverage The Lots, Balance the Books
Last night, Proposition 1, an initiative that would have instituted a 1-cent city-wide sales tax to fund road repaving, failed by a 344 vote margin. If you read my piece arguing in favor of Prop 1 from a couple of days ago, you know I think that sucks. But before we move on to ideas… Continue reading A Tale of Two Kirkwoods
Tomorrow Kirkwood will hold an election that has not garnered much interest. But you should vote if you can. Because tomorrow you have a chance to vote to make Kirkwood better. I speak, of course of Prop 1. Prop 1 would institute a one-cent sales tax in a city-wide transportation development district (TDD) for 40… Continue reading Yes on Prop 1: A Brief Overview
