Broadway redevelopment

Thursday evening there was a community-wide meeting on zoning and development along the Edgewater stretch of Broadway. The meeting was hosted by the Edgewater Community Council (ECC). I wasn't able to attend because of band practice.

The southernmost portion of the area under consideration was the subject of a series of entries on this site:

Broadway update
Broadway survey: analysis
...and earlier entries on my informal Broadway survey

Under the old zoning ordinance, Broadway between Foster and Devon had one of the least restrictive commercial designations. Twenty or thirty years ago, it didn't matter so much what the designation was -- no one wanted to invest in the area anyway. This situation has changed over the last ten years, and now developers are licking their chops over this stretch of roadway.

Under the new zoning ordinance, effective November of 2004, Broadway was to be converted automatically to a B3-3 designation, which, as before, is among the least restrictive designations. But the alderman recognized that there was a disparity between the kind of land use allowed by B3-3 and what would fit with existing uses. To prevent the wrong kind of development, the kind that could cause harm to the community, she temporarily rezoned Broadway to a lower dash-2 density and initiated a process to get input from the community on what an appropriate zoning designation would be.

ECC favors B1-3 along the entire stretch of Broadway. This would allow six-story buildings, which would not be so out of scale between Granville and Devon. But this would be much taller than anything existing between Foster and Hollywood.

I prefer Proposal 'A', titled "Guiding Principles and Draft Zoning Map for Re-zoning Broadway (Devon to Foster)". The text does not identify the proposal's author (maybe I'm missing a cover sheet?). According to Proposal 'A', all of the west side of Broadway would be zoned B1-2. Most of the east side would also be B1-2, but cross streets with 'L' stops would be mostly B1-3 on the half block between the 'L' stop and Broadway. Also, the entire block between Bryn Mawr and Hollywood would be B1-3 on the east side of Broadway.