(This letter to the editor appears in the Morgan County Citizen
, May 17, 2017.)
The Madison Planning Department’s instructive “learning workshop” last week showed it has used flexible zoning tools for years now. After discussing evolutions to the zoning ordinances, City Planners showcased several neighborhoods identified on a colorful map in relation to the Madison Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places to demonstrate what they see as the logical march of infill density.
City Planners described assisting developers in turning a “pocket lot” of 5-acres surrounded by the Historic District into the 20-house cul-de-sac of Candler Lane. With the Downtown Development Authority, City Planners redeveloped a 1-acre “pocket lot” off the now closed Burney Street for
Walker Rose Lane
as affordable housing, replacing the previous eight saddle-bag units landlords had once rented by the week to tenants into seven Victorian frame houses on the same 1/8th acre lots. Across the street City Planners helped developers transform an empty grocery store into Main Street Village or “The Pig,” a renovated box with half-commercial/half-loft living on the interior, an additional four houses in back fronting Second Street, and space for two yet-to-be-built two-story storefronts on North Main. Silver Lakes, Markham Hill and other new developments reflected similar population density.
Readers might recall that prior to this public debate, the last serious discussion over appropriate lot size occurred in 2005 when City Planners proposed single-family recalibration to Madison’s zoning amendment, recommending a reduction from 1-acre lot sizes to 3/4ths in R1 and going up from 1/6th and 1/3rd to ½ acre lot sizes in R2. Despite resistance by homeowners, City Council sided with City Planners, suggesting the increase in R2 would limit density in the Historic District. Yet the “learning workshop” revealed ways to increase housing units instead. To try and make Candler Lane fit in, City Planners moved two historic structures to front the entrance and required the “reduced right-of-way” of a 40-foot street seen elsewhere in the Historic District like on Bacon Street where City Councilman Joe DiLetto noted, “if someone came at me in a Suburban, I’d have had to look for a ditch!” Housing density has difficulty absorbing cars, and such areas as the recreated Walker Rose did not originally have driveways, for the tenants lived in “a walkable city,” but such dense urban design for the beltway is out-of-place in rural Madison where everyone drives to the store and gas stations on the strip.
“To grasp the visual, to make it real,” City Councilwoman Chris Hodges asked, “What is the neighborhood that best makes the visual of a PRD?” The answer could be charming Candler Lane, with its attractive yet densely-packed houses, little yards, narrow street. Planning Director Monica Callahan believes such housing is “maybe not as scary as people think.”
“Greenspace is why I like planned developments,” Councilwoman Hodges explained, referring to the berm that hides Walmart’s parking lot. Yet visitors do not see the “gateway” into the city when crossing the bypass but instead when cresting the hill and entering the Historic District with the stretches of green lawn and houses set back from the road. Here is Madison’s money-maker—for tourists, filmmakers, merchants, realtors—now endangered by dense infill.
Concerned residents organized the Historic Madison Coalition to Preserve Historic Madison (www.historicmadisoncoalition.org) out of a belief that the zoning citizens had accepted already should defend the Historic District, not the Atlanta-style residential developments the “learning workshop” revealed City Planners endorse. If you want to preserve as much of the open land as possible, tell the Mayor and City Council to uphold the existing zoning for appropriate lot sizes for new houses in the old Historic District before it is too late!
Glenn T. Eskew
