Update on The Mix

An article in the June 4th Creative Loafing is the first public report that the longstanding imbroglio about the zoning classification at 841 North Highland Avenue is over. (As shown in the photo, it is the parking lot opposite Osteria and the American Road House; often called ‘The Mix’.)  Like the remainder of the non-residential properties in VaHi, this parcel of land is now covered by the Neighborhood Commercial (“NC”) code.  Creative Loafing reports that all differences have been “amicably resolved” by all parties.  (You can read their article here.)

VHCA is happy to leave this site’s tangled history behind.  The city’s 2009 adoption of the NC zoning classification for the North Highland Avenue commercial areas concluded a very deliberate and thorough two-year process that involved – and got formal support from – a clear majority of both this community’s commercial owners and citizens.  NC was a great choice for all of Highland, including this parcel.

One of our consultants on that NC project was the same Aaron Fortner who has since worked with us on many other efforts, including our Master Plan.  As a planner for the city, Aaron had been on the team that wrote the original NC codes a decade earlier.  Many of the designs and specs for those statutes were taken straight from existing measurements in this neighborhood, which served as a model for the overall approach.  (Ironically, the codes were adopted in a half-dozen other communities before VaHi.)

In the midst of the economic slowdown of those days, one of Aaron’s best insights was emphasizing that substantial future commercial redevelopment along North Highland was a certainty and that business owners and residents needed to collaborate on a common vision before specific development pressures became acute.  One of the NC codes’ key components is granting off-site parking flexibility inside an NC zone.  Taking full advantage of that capability will require additional parking facilities – potential sites and conditions for them were carefully discussed during the planning – to accommodate the kinds of live-work-shop models that have since become mainstream.  In return, future building heights can in no case be higher than 42’ – more than we have now but lower than what is being built in many similar areas.

The relevance of all that effort seem obvious in today’s upbeat climate, but Aaron saw the lights on this train when it was way around the bend.  While there is much room for improvement along VaHi’s sections of Highland (and while no community as popular as ours will ever restore the traffic levels of the 1990’s), one glance at the kinds of construction going on just south of Ponce reminds us that NC zoning gives us a much better starting point for approaching  such challenges than many other areas.

And that is why we are just as amicable as can be about this outcome.