You might recall a decade ago the Neighborhood Center Mixed Use zoning. Though it was supposed to be available more generally for sites around the city, it was specifically formulated with the Bone parcel at Chapman Corner in West Salem in mind.
Previously:
- "City Proposes new draft Neighborhood Center Zoning" (Feb. 2010)
- First conversation at Council about the NCMU zone in July 2011
- "West Salem's Bone Property and Colorado Drive Extension at Planning Commission"
- The final hearing at Council in February 2012
For whatever combination of reasons, the new zoning did not yield a new mixed use development. And other developers around town have not found it useful zoning. The NCMU concept is very dormant.
Now, after a decade, the developers are asking for the northern part of the property to be zoned for apartments. The southern part, at the intersection, would remain zoned for mixed use.
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| New apartment zoning |
As with the Fairview projects, this should be a case study, an example of a kind of forensic analysis, for Our Salem. Why didn't it develop? What ingredients were missing? Are there any lessons from this project and the NCMU generally for the Neighborhood Hub concept? In Our Salem, the City is missing closer analysis of empirical data from right here in Salem.
The hypothesis here on the blog is that nearby swaths of single detached housing do not provide enough people, enough prospective customers, to sustain business activity in a neighborhood center or hub. (At the same time, the applicant has "Bonaventure" in their name, and it may be this is for a retirement home. If they are active, they could patronize businesses in any NCMU developent, but if it is any kind of assisted care, residents probably would not.)
With an adjacent apartment complex, the critical mass of customers might be created.
This is evidence that even with the State making fourplexes legal in zones for single housing, the rate of changeover will mean that there still are not enough people to support Neighborhood Hubs nearby, to support new transit routes or higher frequency, and to make meaningful changes in travel away from drive-alone trips.
As for this proposal specifically, there may be more to say when the Staff Report comes out. The Hearing at the Planning Commission is scheduled for December 21st.
3 comments:
At the time that the MUNC was being considered staff made the same mistake that they are doing with Our Salem. Critics like me said that they needed to do a market analysis of what kind of business would possibly be placed there and then go talk to local businesses what was needed in customers to support that type of business. Staff acted like we were speaking a foreign language. But it went ahead.
I agree that a case study should be done to see why the area did not develop over the many years. My guess is that the general economic decline played a major role. Now the economy wants more housing and apartments are in high demand because most people can't come up with downpayment to buy houses these day.
I think that there are other issues with this property that need to be explored, but the zone change makes sense. I heard that the company that used to build only retirement facilities is branching out to apartments. I wonder if it will be apartments for older residents. There is a need for over-55 housing. That population might not support a robust commercial section, but a small cluster of shops could probably survive. One over 55 apartment complex in east Salem actually has a couple of businesses right inside their building.
Another development in east Salem is putting in a HUB with room for about 8 small businesses within their apartment complex. It will serve a large single family subdivision (about 100 dwelling units total) and like the West Salem location will be the only commercial services within miles. So, it makes some sense over a large commercial area as originally zoned.
There is opposition to more apartments in West Salem, but I see this project as being easily approved with some good planning around streets and access.
Here’s a bigger picture idea from my testimony for the city council meeting tomorrow:
We are overzoned. Just look at the complicated rainbow that is our proposed zoning map. Do we really need to separate “community service government” land uses from our mixed use? Why? Why separate our “employment center” from where people live? Some of the changes proposed, for example, adding a density minimums near transit, are heavy handed and unnecessary when following HB2001. Allowing density has benefits over requiring it such as neighborhood buy-in. The reason Salem isn’t dense enough is because it was illegal, not because it wasn’t required. In fact, there are already some multifamily and multi-use proposals in areas that were previously off limits due to restrictive zoning, probably in every Ward. Consider the 2016 change to allow ADUs- they’re all over the place now because they are allowed. Another example people are worried about is where to allow neighborhood hubs. Wouldn’t a less heavy-handed approach be just to allow hubs anywhere in residential zones so long as they are a certain distance from similar services (or not)? Is the worst case scenario that neighborhoods have too many services nearby? Why do planners, commissions, counselors, and citizens feel like they need to micromanage how our city grows rather than allow needs to be filled organically? This approach has not worked well for the housing market, so why would it be appropriate for hubs? Sometimes flexibility is all we need to achieve the desired results from the bottom up.
(The Hearing was postponed to January 25th.)
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