Stop Downtown Development in Single Family Neighborhoods: Letter

The following letter was written and submitted by Dee Fish of Highland Park.

I urge you to support residents of Oakwood Avenue in their fight to keep downtown development out of single-family neighborhoods. The Plan & Design Commission has been asked to approve construction of a large, downtown-style building at Oakwood and Mulberry.

The lot was created by demolishing two, single-family homes and a duplex. In their place, the developers want to construct a 28-unit, 40-foot tall apartment building that would tower over the surrounding neighborhood of single-family homes and modest 4-6 unit buildings.

The proposed development can’t occur unless the Plan & Design Commission approves a request to combine three lots into a one acre parcel that would dominate our neighborhood of .20 and .25 acre lots. The Commission must also rezone the property to allow higher density, height, lot coverage and more.

Consolidating the lots and rezoning the parcel will create a building that is completely out of scale, context and character for a single-family neighborhood. It will also bring downtown-type development right into our neighborhood.

By approving the developers’ requests to combine the lots and rezone them, the Plan & Design Commission will effectively eliminate any transition between our neighborhood and the central downtown district – which is exactly what the current zoning was meant to establish.

My neighbors and I are not anti-development. But let’s keep downtown-style development where it belongs – downtown.

Dee Fish, Highland Park