Sep 14, 2007

Cottage Housing in Madison-Miller Urban Village

During our neighborhood planning efforts about a decade ago, and the subsequent rezoning efforts, the southern part of the Madison-Miller Urban Village was rezoned (map) to allow "residential small lot, tandem cottage" housing - see this City zoning chart for a terse explanation.

Our intent, as I recall was, to prevent too much "gentrification" by:

  • allowing people to stay in the neighborhood by developing part of their property, while remaining in their existing house on the rest of the property.
  • allowing more small developments like the "Pine Street Cottages" to keep housing affordable.
I note that, after a decade, one such "cottage housing" project has finally been proposed and approved. Here's the text of the DPD decision, which notes "This will be the first cottage housing development on this section of 22nd Avenue." (It goes from 22nd to 23rd).

I'm glad to see that at least one of our ideas is finally coming to pass. Let's hope that it helps to make some part of our neighborhood a little less unaffordable. And maybe it will inspire us to take part in the new neighborhood planning efforts that the Mayor is promising us!





View Larger Map

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

How do you define "affordable?" The new cottages that have been under construction for the past year on 21st between Pine and Olive have recently been completed and the first occupants are moving in. About half are apparently being rented out and the other half will be owner-occupied. One of the cottages, which is still empty, was originally sold earlier this summer for $390k, and recently was re-sold after being on the market for less than a week at $450k. This is a 2-bedroom cottage of around 800sf.

Andrew Taylor said...

I don't define "affordable", other than the original intent of helping prevent existing residents' displacement.

Hence the change from the previous wish (affordable) to the present one (less unaffordable).

Anonymous said...

My other comment is that, according to the sign that's been posted on 22nd, all of the parking for the development will be located on 22nd, instead of tucked behind. I guess I understand why they did this, since the City probably doesn't want access to the parking off of 23rd, but still, it's a bummer for the residents on 22nd. Also, I wish these new cottage developments were required to include a "common green" like the courtyard at the Pine Street Cottages, or the example shown on the City's zoning summary sheet:

http://tinyurl.com/326yb7