House might be heading to Linear Park
Linear Park would gain a garage sized building.
Many don’t realize that the little narrow stretch of green that runs along Belvidere to the James River and at time is behind a brick wall is actually a city park called Linear Park. The city however failed to purchase all the land along that green stretch and one enterprising Oregon Hill resident bought the section and plans to build a house.
“Absolutely, it no longer becomes Linear Park,” said Oregon Hill resident Bob Fuller. “It becomes more like a prison yard.”
The proposed house already in the planning pipeline would back right up to the large “Guardian of the Park” monument, commissioned by the city and created by one of Oregon Hill’s history-minded residents, Charles Poole. The house would cap off the park about three-quarters of the way down to the river, creating a visual bottleneck at Holly Street.
The section marked in yellow above is where I believe the land is located but according to the story on CBS6 it is described as garage sized so developement would not take all that space.
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Richard Hayes
When Richard isn’t rounding up neighborhood news, he’s likely watching soccer or chasing down the latest and greatest craft beer.
Notice: Comments that are not conducive to an interesting and thoughtful conversation may be removed at the editor’s discretion.
If you look on the city parcel mapper site, the lot is 28 feet by 48 feet. It’s less than half of what’s shown in yellow above, and is the half of that area furthest from Belvidere. It’s zoned R7 which has a 15 foot front setback requirement and 3 foot side setback. If the lot is held to the current zoning requirements, the building can only be 13 feet wide, and 42 feet long. Even with a variance on the zoning, it will only be a “bite” out of the corner of that portion of the park, and won’t block the entire width. Not optimal for the park, but not that big of a deal either. I can understand why the owner would take advantage of the opportunity to build. The views from that house, as tiny as it may be, will be amazing.
Yeah, they’ll be able to watch all the trash trucks rumbling across the bridge to southside, and they’ll be able to look into the bedroom windows of all the yuppie townhomes across the street. On the plus side (?), they’ll get a front row ticket to the folk festival.