City discusses high-density housing on East Side

Andrew Glazer

EAST SIDE -- Cookie-cutter homes squeezing onto lots once occupied by

larger, single-family homes here are taking away from the neighborhood

feel of this middle-class, family-filled area, city officials say.

City Councilwoman Heather Somers said the new, higher-density

developments, sprouting like dandelions here as the real estate market

continues to boom, are also flooding residential streets with traffic and

added garbage cans on trash day.

Because many of the complexes are gated and withdrawn from the street,

it’s difficult to chat with neighbors on the way to the mailbox or while

watering the lawn. Some East Side residents say this creates a feeling of

separation in the neighborhood.

“I know everyone on my street, but I think I have yet to meet a neighbor

in the new development across the street from me,” Somers said. “It

doesn’t encourage them to go outside their niche. It’s a little pocket

within the neighborhood.”

The City Council in 1992 reduced the number of housing units allowed on

each piece of land on the East Side in an attempt to preserve the

neighborhood feel.

“I’m very proud of what we did,” said Councilman Joe Erickson, who was

among those who approved the measure. “But there are already so many

built up already. I don’t think you can turn the clock back a decade.”

City planners distributed a report to the City Council at a study session

this week detailing how the city could restrict developers from

subdividing parcels of land.

The city could further decrease the number of homes it allows on each

property, said David Brantley, an associate planner who helped prepare

the report. Or it could require developers to maintain larger back and

front yards and provide more parking for their residents within each

complex.

But Mayor Gary Monahan said it wouldn’t be fair to prohibit the people

who bought homes here years ago from selling their land to more than one

developer. Doing so, he said, would make the property less valuable. For

now, the issue is still in the discussion phase.

“To take that away from them is pretty aggressive,” Monahan said.

Paula Meigs, who has owned a home on Santa Ana Avenue for more than 30

years, along with several other homeowners in the area, said she’s

willing to make the sacrifice.

“I’m not concerned about the property values,” she said, standing in her

frontyard blanketed with grass and ferns and looking across the street at

a new, red-shingled cluster of homes.

“We moved here because the buildings were heterogenous. I just don’t want

to live in a cookie-cutter area.”