Councilmembers considered a 104-acre mixed-use project located on Vernon Road at the city's northern edge.
Anita Cotter, Springfield City Clerk, informed them that a protest petition was found to be sufficient with 30.8 percent of residents living within 185 feet of the property signing on with their opposition to the rezoning. Thus, the ordinance could only pass with a supermajority of six Council votes.
The Vernon Road proposal would mix single-family, multifamily, commercial and open-space areas. Some of the single-family homes would be so-called "small format" "cottage housing," while some of the multifamily buildings would be six-plex and duplex units along with medium-density apartments.
Nearby residents objected to the density, much as neighbors on the opposite side of town also objected to the recently-approved Chimney Rock subdivision, with its own layout of smaller homes.
But unlike Chimney Rock, Vernon Road would include a small amount of commercial development. Vernon Road neighbors objected to that.
So why build small houses and apartments? Stu Stenger is with the developer company. He spoke to Council at a public hearing two weeks ago, citing Springfield's housing crisis: "In the development world, the game has changed. Land costs, infrastructure costs, building costs... people just can't afford what they used to be able to afford. So what do you do? You change what you offer 'em, you gotta shrink the lot size."
Officials said the Vernon Road proposal would pack 9.5 homes per acre into the part of the project reserved for housing. More typical single-family zoning would include something like 8 homes per acre.
But Council passed the rezoning request. The vote was 8-to-1. That's well over the supermajority threshhold required by the protest petition.
The lone vote against the Vernon Road rezoning was by General Councilmember Craig Hosmer.
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