,
14 tweets,
5 min read
Read on Twitter
This morning I walked by the new office building going up on Garrett and 2nd, behind the Glass Building. I looked up some of the history of the development. I found a chance for us to quickly go on a trip down “terrible decisions by the city to address housing” lane. 
In January 2015, Kuttner presented a plan to the Planning Commission to build a couple hundred fairly affordable micro units on this site, plus some office/retail space, and 271 parking spaces. cvilletomorrow.org/articles/glass…
Six month later the developer took a plan to council that included something around 100 micro units, 50 thousand square feet of commercial and a bunch of parking. cvilletomorrow.org/articles/counc…
It sounds like Kutter didn’t have a completed plan to present to council. I wander if that has anything to do with the fact that he knew council wouldn’t like 233 microunits, but it’s expensive to draw new plans, so he pitched a concept.
The comments from the council meeting are something else. Keep in mind he can build 9 stories of commercial on this site by right. Galvin getting hung up on the Strategic Investment Area is something else. Kuttner is an investor, btw.
Neighborhood resident Jeanne Maushammer delivered a NIMBY tour-de-force between the PC and council meeting.
Maushammer lives in the historic 6 story Gleason Building, which was constructed in 2010. She owns two units there she paid over $1.2 million for combined.
Council told the developer to go back to the drawing board. He took this to heart. And decided to build 9 stories of commercial space, called “3TWENTY3” which will have 120,000 sq feet of commercial space and four levels of parking garages containing over 200 spaces.
The anchor tenant is McGuire Woods, the law firm. cvilletomorrow.org/articles/nine-…
We definitely need more commercial space downtown. But it is amazing how council and our stupid housing regulations got in the way of an amazing chance to build exactly the type of housing we need downtown. What a squandered opportunity.
It’s amazing to me that a no point did anyone on council say, or at least say loudly, “we don’t need 200 parking spots right next to the Market Street Garage!!!!”
FWIW, that same city council added a net of exactly zero subsidized units to our city’s affordable housing stock.
I just explained this whole thing to my 7 year old and he went on an incredible YIMBY rant. “That the decision [city council] made was stupid! They said the didn’t want the housing building to be tall, but then it’s okay to build a business building just as tall!”
Some footage of my 7 year old going off: #prouddad
