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Cotswold Area Projects


Miesian Corners

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16 hours ago, SgtCampsalot said:

^Gross. The funny thing is that it would've been a pretty interesting building with a futuristic grandeur if the entrance had been on the sidewalk.

Most likely due to the single entrance design banks utilize to minimize robberies. A location like this is a high profile location for a robbery and foot traffic isn't high enough to have a street facing entrance.

There are still other layouts they could have done that would have been way better and still provided security.

Edited by CLT2014
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  • 4 weeks later...
On 5/17/2016 at 11:10 AM, Miesian Corners said:

Demo of the Cotswold Building has begun. Crews began removing asbestos from the structure last week. 

Nice!   Any idea of when they will implode?  I want to tailgate for it.  

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  • 1 month later...

The Overture luxury 55+ apartments were approved by City Council tonight in a rescheduled vote originally set for last week's zoning meeting. Originally over 200 units, Greystar of Charleston reduced the number of units to 158 in response to neighborhood concerns about density. It will be built on the site of the Masonic Temple on Randolph south of Sharon Amity. It must have nice elevations since Claire Fallon said "and it doesn't look like everything else in Charlotte".

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  • 3 weeks later...

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/business/biz-columns-blogs/development/article90412527.html

 

Not sure if this is the right area for this article.  Any thoughts on whether this neighborhood group's effort is worthwhile?  

They are spreading the message:

 

To City Council members:

Some of us are very concerned regarding the intensive house building on Wonderwood Dr. The same thing is happening in other parts of the city, but Wonderwood is taking the brunt of this under a “Save the Trees” ordinance. The ordinance was developed to encourage developers of large tracks of land to save 10% of the trees rather than strip-cutting the entire site. If they save the 10% they can reduce the lot size to below what actual zoning requires.

The city planning staff has stated that an unintended consequence of the ordinance has been that the developers (it takes only two houses to be a development) have used it to reduce the lot size on previously built sites.

We are in an R-3 zoning which among other things, requires a minimum of 70-foot lot widths. Under the tree ordinance the lot width can be reduced to 50 feet, which makes the Wonderwood Dr. and Hunter Lane area especially vulnerable to this because most of the lots are at least 100 feet wide, and with few exceptions, there are not deed restrictions against dividing the lot. According to the planning staff, this tree ordinance has been used 400 times in the city. 20 of those times the ordinance was used to split lots. 9 of those are on Wonderwood Dr. The tree ordinance has allowed developers to change lot widths and set-backs that do not meet R3, or even R4 zoning. Instead, they have to only meet only R5 requirements.

The irony for Wonderwood is that the ordinance is not saving trees at all. Instead, because of the cramming of houses onto lots that are smaller than the R3 zoning requires, we are actually losing many more trees. The “tree save” areas are usually located at the back of the lots On one lot the tree save area is actually in a flood zone, which no one would have cut down anyway. Also new houses have been shoved up closer to the street, which means there is virtually no room to replace the trees that have lined the street. So instead of seeing trees as we walk down the street, it is beginning to feel like we are walking down a street lined with apartments.

About 5 years ago there were 43 lots on Wonderwood Dr. This tree ordinance has effectively changed almost 25% of the street to R4 and R5 zoning without our having any voice whatsoever in the changing.

The planning staff is making a recommendation that existing lot size cannot be changed by using the tree ordinance. We understand the scheduled dates for discussions on this matter are: A public meeting on Monday, July 18th, recommendation to the Zoning Committee on July 27th, and assuming it passes; it will then go the City Council for a decision on August 22nd at 7pm.

We are concerned about maintaining a street that everyone has loved largely because of trees, and we are asking for your support to return the tree ordinance to its originally intended purpose to save trees on large tract developments, rather than causing the loss of so many trees in existing neighborhoods.

Thank you,

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From what I've heard the planning committee received letters stating similar sentiment to one quoted above and voted to accept the recommendation that the tree ordinance not be used to spit lots in existing neighborhoods beyond what the current zoning allows.

Now a city council must decide.  A vote is expected to occur at the August 22nd meeting.

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