Liz Hayden, the city’s planning director, said she considers the rezoning a “cleanup” of previous zoning decisions.
In 1997, most of German Village was zoned as Business Plan Development, and there’s a German Village Plan to guide development in the area with a mix of offices, other businesses and residences while “protecting and enhancing the neighborhoods residential character and historic integrity,” according to that plan.
“We are basically proposing to put the rest of German Village into that plan area,” Hayden said of the 11.8-acre area.
“To be honest, when we talked to property owners and people who are part of the German Village association (German Village Inc.), they thought it was already part of the plan area,” Hayden said. “That was kind of news to them that it wasn’t.”
She thinks the reason the properties weren’t included was most of them, although they’re historic and they culturally fit the neighborhood, are much larger than the typical buildings in the German Village neighborhood.
“But we just updated the plan to address those bigger buildings,” she said.
The zoning would change from B-3 (Central Business) to Business Planned Development..
Associate Planner Ed Wilson, in a report to council, wrote the rezoning will establish consistent zoning for the German Village neighborhood and eliminate the B-3 zoning, which became obsolete when the Central Business District was rezoned in 2013.
The properties “have similar characteristics to the neighborhood,” he added.
The YWCA recently announced it has financing to build new offices and facilities near Grand Boulevard for its staff, as well as housing for battered women and others in need of stable housing. When it occupies that property in coming years, it will be able to sell the current building, which some have speculated could become a boutique hotel.
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