Flip that Scott’s Addition condo

John over at CHPN.net passed along some interesting agenda items on tap at the 6pm council meeting tonight… Ord. No. 2008-160 (Patron: President Pantele, By Request) – To authorize the special use of *** 3031 Norfolk Street for the purpose of converting the existing building for use as up to 90 multi-family dwelling units ***. Ord. No. […] Be the first to add a comment!

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July 14, 2008; 8:15 AM • by West of the Boulevard News

John over at CHPN.net passed along some interesting agenda items on tap at the 6pm council meeting tonight…

Ord. No. 2008-160 (Patron: President Pantele, By Request) – To authorize the special use of *** 3031 Norfolk Street for the purpose of converting the existing building for use as up to 90 multi-family dwelling units ***.

Ord. No. 2008-162 (Patron: President Pantele, By Request) – To authorize the special use of *** 1700 Summit Avenue for the purpose of converting the existing building for use as up to 89 multi-family dwelling units ***.

I’m no expert when it comes to zoning, council meetings, etc, but it seems like these proposals need a good review before getting Wilder & Pantele’s old rubber stamp.

The proposals are pretty similar, so I checked out the Summit property in more detail (Full PDF of the proposal here)…

The Summit property is an old vehicle repair building and is zoned as M-1 Industrial. Most of the surrounding property is zoned Industrial as well. Plopping hundreds of people in an Industrial zone isn’t too appealing.
They’re only constructing 89 parking spots. Call me crazy, but if you’re building 89 units with 149 bedrooms, you’re going to need more than 89 parking spots.
The plans call for lots of really small apartments. Some of the 2 bedroom units are as small as 612 square feet. Do we really want a lot more tiny apartments in this city? I realize the market will sort all these types of things out, but some city planning could help.
The owner is looking to cash in on a lot of Federal, State, and Local tax credits. Before doling these out, let’s double check that this is what we want to spend taxpayer money on.

Those are my thoughts. What about you?

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It's back. It comes out of the Virginia swamps, cool and slow with plenty of precision.