Progress & Preservation...Together

Comments from Tim Dunn 7-15-99

Mar 17, 2000

Tim, a West Washington Park resident and their neighborhood association president, was also the point person for his neighborhood's attempt to get overlay designation. His neighborhood is from Broadway to Downing and from Alameda to Speer. They were successful.

Their neighborhood association began in the early 1980s developing a neighborhood plan with their neighborhood planner. Neighborhood plans must be approved by City Council after public hearings. A neighborhood plan identifies key pieces to the quality of life in your neighborhood. The neighborhood decides what the neighborhood will look like in the future. It covers areas such as land use, traffic and transportation, housing, economic development, code enforcement, and public facilities and parks. City Council did rule favorably on their neighborhood plan. This took them two years. Since 1991 when they wrote their neighborhood plan, there has been less emphasis by the City on the importance of neighborhood plans. You do not have to have a neighborhood plan to obtain overlay designation. But Tim believes it would be harder without one. We do not need to reinvent the wheel. We can use their plan as a model. It is available in libraries.

Then they became concerned about the high rise buildings being built in their neighborhood just off Speer Blvd. They wanted to change the R3 zoning, which has almost unlimited height restrictions, to R2. This did not look promising, so they began work on getting designated as an overlay district. It took another two years before they were successful. There overly district restricts the height of buildings - 45 feet for residential, 55 feet for commercial, 75 feet for buildings along Speer Blvd. It sets restrictions on set backs and bulk planes of these buildings. Their overlay district also addresses parking issues. They obtained their overlay designation about a year ago. Tim stated that it has not been put to the test. Will the Board of Adjustment grant variances? It is too early to tell if it will be an effective tool for them.