Development plan leaves neighborhood divided

Turn onto Wilkes Boulevard from College Avenue and you’ll quickly see why North Central is called the city’s most diverse neighborhood.

Bocomo Bay adult entertainment store is next to the offices of Sheep Breeder and Sheepman Magazine, which is next to the Heartland Cremation and Burial Service. Across the street there’s a block of modest homes, ending with the Field Elementary School playground.

There are actually six sub-neighborhoods, characterized by predominantly single-family dwellings, mixed-density housing, an artists community, commercial and industrial buildings and one area called Wyatt’s Market that has just about all of the above.

Homeowners are remodeling, Tom and Scott Atkins renovated an old shoe factory into a trendy office building, Brian Pape is converting an historic warehouse into loft apartments and commercial space and artists studios are expanding. But there also has been what the neighborhood association calls “slipshod development,” poor integration of commercial and residential space and housing that is degenerating. And for Columbia, the crime rate is relatively high.

Coming up with a guide for future development, including rezoning, building permits, land disturbance permits and the like, was intended to protect and enhance the neighborhood’s unique character, to protect people’s investment in their property. Advocates of the overlay district also wanted to promote what became known as crime prevention through environmental design.

Homeowners in the North Central Columbia Neighborhood Association got the project rolling. Some of the neighborhood’s most prominent business owners, including Tom Atkins and Brad Eiffert, donated money to pay a consultant to create the development guide.

“This proposed ordinance is the result of many years of public meetings, volunteer energy and work by neighborhood residents, business owners and a hired consultant,” NCCNA vice president Dan Cullimore wrote on the group’s email listserve.

But instead of bringing the neighborhood together, the proposed ordinance to create an Urban Conservation Overlay Zoning District has deeply divided North Central.

During a Planning and Zoning Commission public hearing on Oct. 4, numerous North Central business and property owners voiced opposition, along with representatives of the Chamber of Commerce, the Board of Realtors and the Central-Missouri Development Council.

The most controversial element was a list of more than 60 restricted business uses that includes those Atkins and Eiffert are involved with, a document that the NCCNA board created after the consultant’s draft plan came out.

“They feel pretty betrayed, frankly,” said Phebe Lamar, an attorney representing Atkins, Eiffert and more than 30 other business owners opposed to the proposed ordinance.

Proponents said they are open to major changes when P&Z work sessions on the zoning ordinance begin on Nov. 15.

“We accept our share of the breakdown and offer our sincere apologies for compromising our relationship with those business men and women who have supported our efforts through the years,” NCCNA President Linda Rootes wrote in an email to the CBT. “We are not interested in disrupting anyone’s livelihood or retirement future.”

Shelly Ravipudi, an NCCNA board member involved in residential real estate and management, said this week that she has reservations about the restricted uses. “They are confusing and need to be revised. This overlay should not be threatening to anyone who lives in or conducts business in the neighborhood.”

Ordinance advocates point out that the proposed ordinance offers guidelines and suggestions rather than mandates, and common-sense design principles.

But Lamar said her clients “are not sure that the document can be revised to the point that it would be agreeable to them without simply starting over.” Then she added that there’s so much ill will that they are actually “behind the starting line.”

Lamar points out that while 54 percent of North Central is zoned residential, one third is zoned commercial and industrial.

“The representation of the neighborhood by the neighborhood association seems to be pretty skewed,” she said, adding that the association’s stated purpose is to strengthen the residential community. “They essentially ignore one-third of the property they supposedly represent.”

The proposed zoning ordinance “is largely designed to protect people who live in the area. But it also affects people who have made substantial investments in residential and commercial properties.”

The proposal also has been criticized by advocates of affordable housing who expressed concern that the ordinance could “gentrify” the neighborhood and make it too hard for low-income residents to repair or buy houses.

“The review process is unwieldy and will place an undue burden on people of limited means,” Ruth O’Neill wrote the NCCNA group in an email. “We are one of the last areas in the city where affordable housing exists. … I don’t have a problem with limiting the number of adult book stores, strip malls and liquor outlets in the neighborhood, but this proposal goes way too far.”