City commissioner Karen McCulloh says downtown development plans need to focus more on creating housing. During a presentation on the city’s updated Beyond Tomorrow downtown plan at Tuesday’s commission meeting, McCulloh said there should be less emphasis on building office space and more on developing residential areas. She pointed to the higher rate of people working from home since the COVID-19 pandemic as a reason for this. “It appears to me that we seriously need to put more housing in every nook and cranny down there,” McCulloh said. Senior planner Ben Chmiel, who presented the most recent version of the Downtown Tomorrow plan, said in every focus group he and the other planners conducted, community members said more housing is a need. “I think that area really can be something very special because we kind of have a blank palette there,” McCulloh said. “If we really go in and develop that area, we could do some interesting housing.” Commissioner John Matta said a previous commission had concerns that creating too much housing could cause congestion in the area and exacerbate parking difficulties. Mayor Wynn Butler agreed with Matta that developing housing is necessary, but he doesn’t want to see it affect traffic or parking in the area. He also said he’d like to get electric trollies that look like the old-fashioned trollies to use as shuttles from downtown to the parking garage or some other large parking space.
Source: themercury.com
