Same old NIMBY excuses are threatening to hold Hyde Park Square back

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2 days ago

Cincinnati City Council has made a very wise decision to allow rezoning in Hyde Park Square. This allows a project to move forward that will create more housing and amenities in one of the most desirable locations in our city.
The increased density will help existing businesses in the Square by driving more traffic. The project will create space for new businesses and, therefore, more jobs. Over 100 units of housing will be added to the city's supply, which is strained. The agglomeration effects of higher density, especially of high-wage earners, will promote activity in an area well beyond the Square itself and generate higher tax revenue into perpetuity.
The virtues of the project hardly need to be stated. It's textbook good urbanism.
But the age-old enemy of every ambitious development project has reared its head: NIMBYism (Not In My Back Yard). The NIMBYs have forcefully made their case against the project in City Council meetings, street protests, and in the Enquirer. Now that council has approved rezoning the NIMBYs are even mobilizing to field a ballot initiative to kill the project.
I've read their objections and find them thoroughly unpersuasive.
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They think the project's too tall. Really? Eighty-five feet is hardly a skyscraper.
They're concerned they weren't listened to in the planning process. But City Council did listen to them; they just decided (correctly) that they were wrong.
Some NIMBYs are opposed to the project because it doesn't include subsidized housing. But if opponents want more subsidized housing, they should go support subsidized projects, not obstruct good market-rate projects.
The Hyde Park NIMBYs say the same thing NIMBYs say everywhere. They're in favor of development, just not this development. They support housing, just not this housing. They support local businesses, just not these local businesses.
Notice a pattern? NIMBYs who approve of development in general but never in particular are standing athwart progress yelling "Stop!" They're also standing athwart housing costs yelling "Higher!"
The opponents of the Hyde Park Square project need to be honest with themselves. This is a perfectly reasonable development, and their opposition to it amounts to supporting stasis and decay.
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There is one concern I share with some of this project's skeptics. That is the aesthetic quality.
Hyde Park Square is one of our city's better public spaces. That is why so many people are understandably concerned about changing it. It's natural to want to steward beautiful things. If a project wants to contribute to Hyde Park Square rather than detract from it, the project should be a pleasing aesthetic addition.
The bar isn't that high. Hyde Park is far from perfect. It contains one of the city's rather lesser examples of Art Deco. The eclectic mix of architectural styles has its weaker points. Somebody's already built a bland, single-tone brick apartment complex on the east end, one of those with the tiny jutting balconies that look like they were stuck on as a hasty afterthought.
The new project must rise above that. It must be pleasing to look at. Beautiful buildings on the scale that are planned can be a centerpiece for the Square. They can concentrate the gaze and enliven the experience of walking or eating, or simply sitting anywhere in Hyde Park Square.
While it is possible to create a beautiful building in a modern style, the developers should look to Cincinnati's rich architectural past if they want to greatly increase their chances of success. It will be much better if whatever they build recalls Over-the-Rhine row houses or Concert Hall, or the Richardson Romanesque of the San Marco building and City Hall, or the classical facades of the early 20th century mid-rises downtown, literally anything other than the bland, placeless 5-over-1 style that gets thrown up everywhere these days.
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If they can do that, if they can both increase the amenities of the neighborhood as well as the beauty of Hyde Park Square, then the project's developers will win over many of their critics, who, once the dust settles, will concede it looks great, is good for the neighborhood, and move on with their lives.
But if they don't, if they announce they're planning something that looks like one of the more slapdash student housing projects that have sprung up around the University of Cincinnati recently (I'm looking at you Central Parkway and McMillan at Auburn!) then I'd be happy to join the NIMBYs at the barricade.
Let's hope it doesn't come to that.
Christopher Wood is a neurologist who lives in Clifton.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: The future of Hyde Park Square shouldn't be held hostage | Opinion