Ogden Rising: Stunning Victory for Gentrification

Yesterday night's marathon city council meeting was an amazing moment for the future of the East Central Historic District neighborhood. Many of us from the community were there to voice our opinions on the proposed rezoning of commercial areas within our residential neighborhoods.

Beside the zoning ordinance itself, there were several important variance issues on the table:

1. Do we disallow drive through windows for businesses in the zone?
2. Do we mandate oversight on construction materials used in all new development in the zone?
3. Do we impose restrictions on maximum parking allowances?
4. Do we manage building placement and orientation on a lot and how it appears from the street?

The new code for NC-1 and NC-2 zones is designed to keep with the historic integrity of the EC Historic District and to make small commercial areas work well in residential areas.

The exciting part about this was that the room was filled with folks from the neighborhood. Each of us took a turn speaking in support of the zoning.

Here is the link to the audio of the meeting.
The meeting was three and a half hours so let me help you skip to the interesting parts:
1:25:00 - Chairperson Amy Wicks opens the meeting up for comments
1:30:25 - Planning Commission speaks on supporting the ordinance
1:38:00 - Bob McConnohey speaks on supporting the ordinance
1:41:50 - Shalae Larsen speaks on supporting the ordinance
1:47:13 - Chris Monson, NAI Commericial, opposes the ordinance and explains why
1:52:00 - My thoughts on why the Council should support the ordinance
1:58:40 - Sue Wilkerson speaks on supporting the ordinance
2:03:43 - Dave Spatefore attempts to rebut and assuage the community's sentiments
2:08:20 - Dave Willis rebukes the developers
2:09:20 - Brent Dopp rebuts Dave Willis comments

Here is a copy of my comments to the council sent via email prior to the meeting:

Hello Members of the City Council,

As a resident of downtown Ogden, and someone who cares very deeply about our urban community, I wanted to take a couple moments and share some thoughts regarding the proposed variance requested by the Lesaspi Company for its property located at 24th and Monroe.

First, let me say that I believe Ogden has an underappreciated asset in downtown. That asset is the East Central Bench Historic District. This historic district is by far the largest in the United States. It encompasses an amazing 3000 structures and covers over one square mile.

The questions facing our community, and currently being addressed by the East Central Community Plan Steering Committees, is what direction do we want this neighborhood asset to go? Do we want to tear down and start over? Or should we preserve and upgrade what we have? In essence, what do we want our urban community to be?

The answers to these questions have been answered in an almost unanimous chorus by the Steering Committees: Preserve our historic heritage; build with our historic heritage in mind; redevelop where this heritage has been ignored; and make the community a cohesive and vibrant place.

History shows that the city has not always been a good steward of the historical character of its urban neighborhoods. The effects of R-5 zoning and commercial development along 24th Street are a testament to errors in neighborhood planning. These misjudgments from the past have haunted the city landscape to this very day.

When buildings are erected, they are built to stand for generations. When built wrong, they can take a generation or more to correct. This is the case with the IGA building. It was built incorrectly for the market in which it resides. Its state of abandonment for the last decade is a testament to that fact. We now have the rare opportunity, with the input from many involved and educated citizens, to have the IGA center redeveloped to a viable and sustainable commercial center. However, this sustainability depends upon heeding the NC zoning guidelines that are in line with the suggestions from the ECCP Steering Committees. Downtown Ogden has twice as much retail space as the market will support. Let’s take the time and care to make the IGA center of such good quality that it will work within the community and be successful for years to come and not a reckless gamble on short term tax revenue.

In summary, to provide a variance for redevelopment at 24th and Monroe would bring the following impacts :

1. It would disenfranchise the ECCP Steering Committees and the entire community planning process
2. It would allow for larger parking spaces and less walkability in the neighborhood as the center would be designed not to integrate into the community plan.
3. The redevelopment would follow architecturally themed design that, not only would be inconsistent with its surrounding neighborhood, but would make the building unsuitable for other new businesses in the event the current business failed. The building would return to being an abandoned eyesore for the community except with a new architecturally themed façade.

For these reasons, I encourage each of you to ponder the tremendous impact your decision will have Tuesday evening on our neighborhood and to support the new NC zoning without a variance. I would be more than glad share my thoughts and insights with you. Feel free to contact me anytime.

Fortunately for our neighborhoods, the city council approved the zoning and also voted in the affirmative on all four auxilliary issues listed above. Our input, I believe, helped the City Council understand how important these issues are to building a neighborhood with continuity.