Great place to live. Affordable. Accessible. Good neighbors. All the things you’d want to hear about any neighborhood, and precisely the things one often hears about Merion Village. Many of the folks in Merion Village are life-long residents, and in some cases, generations have lived within blocks of one another. Additionally, new families are moving in.
Not long ago, in an attempt to keep Merion Village’s streets in tact, the neighborhood requested, and won approval from the city, to limit future construction to two [living] units per lot. Essentially, Merion Village was rezoned.
That’s a relatively nice thought considering the way things are now. And it makes sense that the “streetcar suburb” feel of the neighborhood be kept as is. Tonight, however, while attending Kyle Ezell’s presentation on the new University District, I realized that Merion Village may be in for some unexpected surprises as the neighborhood evolves.
As one of his presenters stated, land-mass is a constant value. We are not growing more land. Housing values rise, property taxes rise, and as Columbus becomes more dense, we’ll see the surrounding neighborhood values rise, as well. Of course, that’s what everyone living in Merion Village would like…or so it might seem. Increased property values, and therefore increased sale prices.
Look forward, however, 10 to 20 years, as prices soar and long time residents die off. When the single family home becomes outside the reach of entry level buyers, Merion Village will not have the proper housing stock to attract new residents, and could potentially fall into another period of decline. If they can’t afford it, they won’t move in.
In such a case, the neighborhood will become stagnant and dull.
Keeping a neighborhoods population vibrant requires affordable housing options. Without options beyond a duplex or “double”, Merion Village’s rezoning is, essentially, a bottle neck to its future by disallowing new housing models and methods. Any renovation, any new construction is now limited. Essentially, only what is can be reproduced.
The former RaceQuip building at 4th and Moler was a great opportunity to see something new emerge in Merion Village, but unfortunately, the developer has pulled the plug on that project. All of 4th Street could have been rezoned to accommodate high-density, low rise housing.
There’s always a desire to keep in place what currently is. The challenge, however, is that neighborhoods, like people and personalities, are always changing. Limiting what can be simply creates stagnation and a lifeless soul.
4 responses so far ↓
Susan Halpern // 30 October, 2007 at 10:06 am
The problem with making 4th Street open to multifamily development is that on the southern border of Merion Village you could wind up with more (note the word “more”
low income ghetto housing. I’m actually from Hungarian Village and we fought side by side with Merion Village to get the rezoned as well. I’m all for development, but there is no way to keep slumlords from creating multi unit low income nightmares for the neighborhood aside from the current rezoning. I think that rezoning is a possibility when the entire area cleans up and truly outprices young people, just not right now. By the way, there is some lovely rehabbing being done to existing multifamily units (which are grandfathered in under zoning laws) on 4th and Welch, and they are quite reasonably priced for condos.
Bob Leighty // 30 October, 2007 at 1:25 pm
Great blog!!!! These are exactly the kinds of discussions that we should be having about our neighborhoods.
The downzoning to R2F, which has also been done by German Village, Harrison West, Schmacher Place, Hungarian Village, Southern Orchards, and many other neighborhoods, came out of many discussions with lots of neighborhood residents and city planners. And you are right, things are always changing, we’re trying to influence the changes in positive ways. Many corridors in Merion Village would lend themselves to higher-density housing, High Street and Parsons Avenue in particular, since they have the better infrastructure to support the traffic high-density developments bring. And don’t forget, any parcel anywhere can be rezoned, there is an open, public process for doing that. We deal with rezonings and zoning variances all the time in Merion Village, we’re looking at two right now.
In fact, our residents spent considerable time working with the developer on his proposal for the RaceQuip building to make sure that it was the best it could be… his numbers just didn’t work. Now the neighborhood needs a new buyer for the building… if anyone is interested, please speak up!
Yes, nothing stays the same. I’ve lived in Merion Village since 1988, and it has changed considerably since then. But part of what makes it a vibrant place is that the neighbors help drive those changes, and the neighbors work together to keep what is best about the neighborhood while making changes for the future. Our community activists have been busy the last 20+ years. We’ve built playgrounds and parks. We’ve helped our local schools. We’ve worked out plans for new developments, and saving and reusing historic buildings. We’ve established a very effective safety group that works with Columbus police and CCP patrolers and neighborhood folks. We’ve help shut down crack houses. We’ve helped low-income people get money to fix up their homes. We’ve shared our gardens and our artwork. And the list goes on…
I hope that this blog is heavily used, and helps improve communication among those who care about Merion Village. It’s great that it links to our neighborhood website, merionvillage.org. We post notices about neighborhood activities and information there. Some of our activities are social, and we’re proud of that, because those social events help with communication and relationships, that that helps us make lasting improvements to our quality of life in Merion Village.
Neighborhoods are always changing. If you can, come to our neighborhood meeting on November 7 and help us with those changes. We’ll be discussing a new plan that neighborhood folks have developed for northern Merion Village and Schumacher Place. One possibility discussed in the plan is to create artist living and work space in a renovated Barrett Middle School. Folks from Artspace just toured the building, and said it would be a great space for artists and the community. What do you think? You can get more information, and links to our City planner and a draft of the plan, from our neighborhood website, merionvillage.org.
There is a bright future for Merion Village and other tight-knit neighborhoods in Columbus. We need to work together, communicate in blogs and emails and in person at meetings and social events. This blog is a great addition to our neighborhood… good stuff!
michaelreed // 30 October, 2007 at 5:30 pm
I lived in Merion Village for about 3 or 4 years almost a decade ago. I loved it. We were on Mithoff, just outside of German Village proper. The neighbors were awesome, we were close to everything, and the rent was reasonable (I hear the housing prices are too).
Congrats on the Blog. Awesome to see more and more voices enter the conversation about what an awesome city Columbus is.
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Columbus: Indie Art Capital of the World (you too Merion Village!)
Jason // 31 October, 2007 at 2:46 pm
Great to see this blog start up! I’m a homeowner in Merion as well and have lived in the community for almost four years.
Although I think that rezoning some particular streets in the future might be necessary, I agree with the recent rezoning. It should be a positive thing for the community.
I feel that this was an attempt to avoid construction of poor quality multi-unit apartment complexes. Several of these are visible on the edge of Schumacher place, these do not fit well with the urban fabric of the neighborhood.
But, I wouldn’t be surprised to see more higher density development on main arteries in the village in the future (when the market is right).
Congrats again on the blog…I will check back regularly!
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