Heritage Hill "Density" Discussion

On November 1st and 4th of 2023 the Heritage Hill neighborhood association hosted two (2) hour sessions related to the Housing "Crisis" and the current round of proposed Zoning reforms. Roughly the first hour of the session was a presentation, by a Heritage Hill resident, on zoning, Heritage Hills' current density, and the current housing market. The second hour was Q&A and the type of table based work-shopping typical of these events.

Aside: The density of Heritage Hill is ~8,500 people sq/mi. It is significantly less than the densest neighborhood in the city.

I was able to attend the first hour of session on the 4th; I did not stay to participate in the table work-shops as I am not a Heritage Hill resident.

The Heritage Hill neighborhood association has now released two documents sumarrazing the content and feedback of the events:

• Heritiage Hill "Density" discussion, report, PDF (13 pages)
• Heritiage Hill "Density" discussion, participant evaluation, PDF (6 pages)

Disappointingly, although Heritiage Hill has a very large number of rental households, these events tracked with the typical turn-out for meetings about municipal issues: 150 participants, 91% property owners. The participants in these events are affluent. Demographic information does not appear to have been collected, yet both photographs and observation of the session I attended clearly demonstrate a composition far older than the median age of the city [which is 33.1 years].

The sessions did ask participants to list the benefits of density, resulting in a more interesting document than if they had done only the fear gathering exercises we saw during "Housing NOW".

The "concerns" about density followed stereotype:

1. Parking
2. "Community"
3. Absentee Landlords
4. Maintenance
5. Noise
6. Traffic
7. Safety
8. Infrastructure
9. Renters

Related

• The Joint PC/CC Meeting, 2023-07-13, UrbanGR
• Housing NEXT Needs Update, UrbanGR
• Housing Next Needs Analysis, UrbanGR
• Planning Agenda: 2023-09-28, UrbanGR
• Planning Agenda: 2023-11-09, UrbanGR

Some public comment extends in to the "Heritage Harold", which is the quarterly (?), newsletter of Heritage Hill Neighborhood Association:

Neighbor reported being the recipient of unwarranted public criticism by another attendee of the community forum on density and requested more neighborly discourse be required at future HHA events. Neighbor suggested that procedures and training for conflict management and de-escalation be implemented. Neighbors discussed, evaluated and provided detailed feedback of the community forums for board consideration. A call to action was made of the HHA board: Oppose the proposed increase in occupancy from four unrelated adults to six; request that Heritage Hill become a designated overlay district so that its unique needs as a federally recognized historic district be considered and not indiscriminately bound by the citywide overall strategic plan. Another neighbor thanked the organizers of the community forums, and noted that Heritage Hill is currently 27% owner-occupied; our goal isn’t to reduce occupant density, but to not increase it. He also noted that when zoning issues are presented as "rights", unique neighborhoods like Heritage Hill lose their voice and eventually their uniqueness.

• Heritage Harold, January/Febuary 2024

IMPORTANT NOTE: Single unit housing is built by-right, without community input, and all single-unit housing was constructed by a "developer".

P.S. A City Commission stood up and said something at one of the sessions, this is noted in one of the comments. There is no record of who that was or what was said; but, to whichever Commissioner that was: 👍 Thank you for your participation.