1921 R.B. Stevens Building, now decaying while 5 Points Business Association opposes Smart Code
People in central can expect to continue to see vacant buildings with ugly facades such as the old Stevens Building. With Smart Code the building could be restored and a mix of uses - residential and shops - could enliven the 5 Points District of El Paso.
Dangerous vacated apartments along Grant add to the blight of the area.
El Pasoans and their City Council overwhelmingly approved Plan El Paso. This master plan however requires implementing Smart Code - something reactionaries in business associations and on the City Council seem to detest.
The EPT editorial on 7/25 regarding the Montecillo apartments is based on a falsehood…if you don't mind my saying so.
ReplyDeleteThe apartments at Montecillo are NOT Smart Code Zoned. If they were they would have to be lined up right next to each other, all four buildings, and also placed right up against the sidewalk. The entire premise that these apartment buildings are measures of the success of Smart Code zoning is totally false and unfounded. They are zoned GMU which was an intentional choice by the developer who recognized that SCZ would not have permitted the layout favorable to these four buildings being a success. Neither would the new buildings under construction for a year now in the center of the apartments with the preposterous stacked rusty shipping containers have been permissible as they are positioned if they were Smart Code Zoned.
The retirement center currently under construction is on the Smart Code zoned land, but until the massive development around this building is completed and occupied there is no example there of how or if Smart Code zoning will work in El Paso. We really cannot know yet if enough people will want to forgo front and back yards and the option for having a swimming pool or a place for their dog to run around. Also expensive rents for all the ground floor retail, restaurant and grocery tenants in expensive multi story buildings will dictate higher prices for food and goods and we need to wait and see if "walkable" will overcome "affordable" via drives to Walmart and Costco for enough potential residents. Consider also that the Smart Code zoned portion of the Montecillo development is being made possible only due to tens of millions of dollars in subsidies granted by the previous city council (the editorial could have mentioned that) so this development will never actually be able to represent an economic viability of a SCZ development in El Paso.
You cannot look to one or two buildings as exemplifying success of SCZ. SCZ involves a very complex synergy for a community development and our code mandated that only very sizable Greenfield or infill developments could be qualified for SCZ. Of course in the mad rush to promote SCZ our Planning Department has amended the code over and over to fit the particulars of any possible SCZ prospects whether mandated for city owned land or for privately owned land and as a result the code is now disjointed and basically invalidated from being representative of what has made SCZ developments around the country viable. I believe that from the first hurried Smart Code zoning of land at Asarco to the latest tiny apartment complex at UTEP there has not been any variances or warrants incorporated into a single application and instead the code is modified each and every time.
The editorial is years premature. EPT will have to wait for a sizable Smart Code zoned development to go forward in El Paso without incentives before they (or you) can derive any conclusions such as are stated for Montecillo. But the EPT would serve the public better to be very cautious since there is not a single Smart Code Zoned community in the United States where median household incomes are anywhere near as low as here in El Paso. A successful SCZ community here if true to the nationally established predicates for the code (rather than the ongoing amendments for each perspective application) would be truly unprecedented. And one single yogurt shop tenant on the ground floor of the four Montecillo apartment buildings does also not yet validate multistory mixed use.
All Montecillo proves so far is that there was a market for nice apartments near UTEP even if some were close to a noisy commuter road and also quite ugly and painted like they were located on the Mediterranean.