Photo:Retail businesses in residential buildings help New Hope, PA thrive with sidewalk traffic making the area attractive to residents and visitors alike.

Neighbors Chime In On Zoning

Respondents to a recent City Home News survey like the idea of having small shops and other businesses being opened in residential buildings. From Greenwich Village to Savannah, small shops and offices in residential buildings help to keep a city healthy and vibrant. Good examples here are Ellsworth Avenue in Shadyside as well as Craig Street and Atwood Street in Oakland.

Eighty-eight percent of readers responded "yes" to the question of "Many cities have small shops mixed into urban neighborhoods, sometimes with boutiques in old houses. Should this be encouraged/allowed in Pittsburgh?" Just eleven percent responded "no."

Opposition to commercial uses in Pittsburgh partially comes from the idea that an existing commercial business would buy up houses and tear them down for parking if the houses were zoned for commercial uses. There are many examples of this happening. The solution may be to create a new zoning category for small retail businesses that don't occupy more than the typical ground floor square footage of a typical house, say 1,000 SF. They should not allowed to accomodate for parking, with the business relying primarily on foot traffic.

Another possibility could be an ordinance allowing artists who work in their home to hang a shingle and sell their products from their living room. This could apply to the entire city or just specific districts.

Also creating additional historic districts and protecting buildings from demolition could allow for commercial uses, encourage lively neighborhoods and prevent a suburbanization effect when properties are demolished for parking.

I agree with the majority of respondents when they say shops should be able to open in residential buildings, because single-use neighborhoods--places where there is primarily or exclusively housing-- is a suburbanizing affect of another sort. Photo: Imagine how Chestnut Street could benefit from small shops and galleries in the homes...

There's a parking space for sale in Manhattan right now, and priced at $225,000 and there's a waiting list. I'm not sure what all we can read into this-- a further indication that the gap between rich and poor in the U.S. is growing? Support for the idea that the super rich are congregating along the coasts (where they just might be moving into the path of global-warming related storms and flooding)? I don't know too many people, here in Pittsburgh anyway, who paid more than $225,000 for their home. I'd place the value of a parking spot here at around $5,000 in most neighborhoods. I'm sure there are plenty of people, even in Manhattan, who shake their heads wondering just who can plop down $225,000 on a parking spot. It's a good thing that most people in Manhattan don't need cars or parking.

Also, One of my clients sent along a quote from a recent Newsweek editorial, not about expensive parking spaces in Manhattan, but another obnoxious indulgence, monster houses. Quoting Robert H. Frank's new book, Falling Behind
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rising affluence condemns us to self-defeating consumption contests. People want ever-bigger homes, because their friends have ever-bigger homes. But the extra pleasure of owning these grander homes is muted, because (yes) all our friends have them, too. Meanwhile, the added debt to buy the house may make us more anxious; and we may regret sacrificing some leisure-working harder to buy the bigger home.

Greater individual wealth does not bring greater collective welfare. Moving farther out into suburbia for a bigger home increases traffic congestion and our commutes. Roads grow more clogged, pollution worsens. We engage in behaviors that are smart for one, dumb for all.

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