Residents seek downzoning to preserve Benton-Stephens

Columbia Missourian

When the weather is warm, Benton-Stephens resident Peter Beiger likes to sit on the front porch of the home he rents at the corner of Pratt and Ripley streets, enjoying the sunshine and the occasional company of a passerby.

Beiger's house is a patchwork of multiple additions to what originally was a farmhouse. A short wooden rail fence frames the rectangular yard, which features stone landscaping and an assortment of trees and shrubs. Beiger said he often ventures off the porch for fence-side chats with friends, some of which go on for hours.

That's what he appreciates about the Benton-Stephens neighborhood.

"You get to know your neighbors, and everybody watches out for everyone else," Beiger said. "It's vintage. There's a feeling to it that's warm and unique and old-timey. It's another world."

Some property owners in Benton-Stephens are trying to protect that feeling by downzoning 34 of their lots from R-3, which allows multi-family apartment buildings, to R-1, which allows only single-family houses. Another property would be downzoned from R-3 to R-2, for duplexes, according to a city staff memo to the Columbia City Council. The council is scheduled to vote on the matter Monday night.

The downzoning requests are a symptom of the tension that has emerged between single-family residents of Benton-Stephens and others who own apartment and townhome properties in the neighborhood just a little north and east of downtown. It's a tension that dates back to the 1990s, when the city approved the Benton-Stephens Urban Conservation Overlay District, a blanket type of zoning that places limits on developments next to R-1 lots, according to the conservation ordinance.

Single-family residents want to preserve what they call the homey character of Benton-Stephens by fending off new apartment developments. Others, however, say Benton-Stephens is a nice neighborhood where those looking for affordable apartments near college campuses and downtown should have the chance to live, too. The council when it votes on Monday will have a large say in how Benton-Stephens evolves.

Downzoning as a tool

The zoning change was proposed in part as a reaction to the proposed Unified Development Code, a plan which sets city development and land-use regulations that city planners and consultants have been working on for years. The development code would place new limits on surrounding properties based on zoning, according to previous Missourian reporting. The new zoning rules also will get their first public hearing before the council on Monday.

Benton-Stephens resident Peter Norgard, who lives on Hinkson Avenue with his wife, Rita Fleischmann, said downzoning in advance of the new zoning code will make it more difficult for redevelopment to encroach on single-family houses.

Fleischmann and Norgard said they initiated the downzoning movement after asking the city to block high-density developments and seeing little change.

"As we see redevelopment encroaching, the only tool we have in our toolbox is downzoning," Norgard said.

Those who oppose the downzoning, however, say the move would harm their property values.

"We didn't buy the property over there zoned R-3 to have it zoned R-1," Sandy Craig said. "It's going to drop the price of our property immensely if they do that."

Sandy and Robert Craig own four lots in the Benton-Stephens area, all zoned R-3 and featuring a mix of property uses, from a single-family home to a four-plex.

Value, however, can be subjective, Norgard said. 

"We are told by the development community that by downzoning, we are reducing the value of our property," Norgard said. "But we are reducing the value of our property to them. We could in fact be increasing the value of our property to other single families who don't yet live here."

The city council upzoned neighborhoods around the downtown area, including Benton-Stephens, in the late 1950s to promote growth, Third Ward Councilman Karl Skala said.

"At that time, the thing that was needed was growth, and in order to make these properties more attractive and for people to purchase these properties ... the promise (was needed) that they were enhanced in their value," Skala said. "It was an encouragement to develop growth when we were a small town and needed that growth to pay the bills and provide the services." 

Skala said he supports the downzoning movement. 

"It's very unusual for folks who own that property to downzone because typically, that connotes a devaluation of their property," Skala said. "These residents — and I concur with them — feel like the value for that area in Benton-Stephens has less to do with the actual value of the property than it has to do with the sense of community that Benton-Stephens offers."

The promise of growth would be broken with downzoning, said Carol Stevenson, the wife of landowner Mark Stevenson.

"For 60 years, people bought property in that area with the expectations and the promises of R-3 zoning," Carol Stevenson said. "This is like a light switch. In a moment, they want to undo 60 years of expectations and promises."

Mark Stevenson, who recently had lots replatted along Windsor Street to accommodate plans for a sixplex, said downzoning would represent an erosion of property rights.

"Predictability, in society, really is a fundamental right," Stevenson said. "If you drive out of here, and you're on the right side of the road, and a cop comes along and arrests you and says: 'Hey, we just changed the law to the left side,' you'd say, 'Bulls---.' We feel the same way about predictability of development rights. Whether we develop it now, or someone else develops it now or later, those are still rights."

Neighborhood transformation

The idea to downzone properties, which was approved unanimously by the Planning and Zoning Commission on Jan. 5, emerged when Benton-Stephens residents started noticing newer multi-family developments popping up around the neighborhood east of College Avenue, Norgard said. Developments on Hartley Court and on Windsor, Richardson, North William and Ann streets all house multiple residents.

"We are trying to make it more respectful of the neighborhood that it's in. These are bungalow, Dutch-revival homes built 100 years ago, and they're getting these plastic, Cracker Jack boxes built next door to them, and it just doesn't look right," Norgard said. "A lot of change is happening in a very short period of time, and people aren't set up to deal with that."

Benton-Stephens resident Lenny Rahaman, whose property on Paris Court is among the lots proposed for downzoning, said he has seen changes near his property after a smaller home was replaced with a higher density complex.

Rahaman's house, like Beiger's, has a small front porch. His back porch used to offer a nice view of his neighbor's lot, but the recent apartment development prompted him to put up some outdoor curtains to block the view.

"You would look out the porch and see somebody else's grassy backyard," Rahaman said. "Right now, we have a pair of high-density apartments, so instead of somebody else's backyard up against our backyard, we have a parking lot and the backside of an apartment much closer than the previous house was.

"The different use of the property makes our home have a different feel than it used to."

The changes are creating a different sort of neighborhood, Fleischmann said. 

"If you have people that are having parties until 3 in the morning next door to you, and you're thinking it was a quiet neighborhood — because it used to be — nobody wants to come live next door and raise a family next to a dorm," Fleischmann said. 

Beiger, who has lived in Benton-Stephens on and off since the early 1970s, says he has noticed the change in atmosphere.

"(Now) the conditions of the houses are beginning to show their age, and there's some deterioration going on — much more rental property," Beiger said. "I don't want Benton-Stephens to become like the East Campus environment."

Mark Stevenson, who owns about 12 properties in the neighborhood, said the density and change is to be expected in an area close to downtown and to the MU and Stephens College campuses.

"Students are not always the easiest people to live next to or rent to, but this is College Town, USA," he said. "That's kind of like buying next to the airport and not wanting to hear planes."

Protecting all rights

Balancing the interests of the owner of an R-3 lot who wants to build high density with those of an R-1 lot owner is a complex struggle, Planning and Zoning Commissioner Rusty Strodtman said.

"In an ideal world, we would have a clean slate, and we would have certain areas be high density and other areas be single family, but they're intermixed now, so we don't have that luxury," Strodtman said. "I think we need to do the best we can to minimize the clashing at property lines."

The situation requires compromise, said Michael MacMann, another planning commissioner.

"I see it as a community response," MacMann said. "Say you owned all this property. You can certainly do whatever you want, but you do have neighbors, and what you do does affect them. We have 30,000 students, and we have 30,000 residents (downtown), and we are all on top of each other. How do we make this work together?"

Lots zoned R-3 can still be used in an R-1 manner, Mark Stevenson said.

"We are not against R-1 usage, and we are not trying to restrict their R-1 usage," Mark Stevenson said. "We demand the same respect — that they not restrict our R-3 usage, now or in the future. They need to respect our rights."

Keeping Benton-Stephens diverse

The streets of Benton-Stephens are crowded with cars, indicative of both the parking problem that has long frustrated residents and the number of people who want to live in the neighborhood. Homeowners, renters, students and professionals all are neighbors. And many of the short streets in Benton-Stephens have single-family homes, apartments and duplexes next to each other.

That mix is a healthy thing, Carol Stevenson said.

"Benton-Stephens is affordable housing, and that's why it has that really diverse population," she said. "If you drive through it, it's everything. It's a crazy quilt of lovely places of everything imaginable."

Regardless of how they feel about the downzoning, folks with an interest in Benton-Stephens share an appreciation for what it represents. 

"There's such good people in this neighborhood. They're diverse and friendly and interesting," Beiger said. "If the city fathers are smart, they'll recognize how precious this is and how valuable it is, and they'll do everything they can to protect it and encourage it."

Diversity, however, doesn't equate with lower density, Mark Stevenson said. 

"Why try and make it hard for some people to live there? Share the joy."