Kevin Pettway can sit on his front porch, look slightly left down Oak Street and see the cluster of buildings that’s caused quite the Riverside controversy in recent months.
It’s a small shopping center with frontages that bear the Deluxe Laundry and Dry Cleaners along with De Luxe Launderette names, although they’ve been gone for more than a decade.
Pettway wants to see something positive in the space — but not what developers are pitching for the neighborhood.
The Roost would be a 150-seat restaurant with a full liquor license and outside seating.
Developers are seeking a needed zoning change, saying it “will benefit the surrounding neighborhood and community,” according to documents filed with the city.
Not everyone agrees it’s a benefit.
Since being proposed in fall, there’s been a concerted pushback from some residents like Pettway and Jennifer Wolfe.
They’re part of the Positive Riverside Optimized Urban Development citizen group — otherwise known as PROUD.
The expected influx of people and cars, along with outside service and the liquor license are part of the reason they said a use like The Roost wouldn’t work.
“When you put a restaurant or any overly intense commercial use in a residential neighborhood, it’s like a cancer,” said Wolfe. “It grows … it encroaches.”
Wolfe lives a little over a block away from shopping center. She and PROUD believe the zoning overlay for the area should be left intact. Residents like her aren’t anti-growth, she said. They just want the right kind of growth.
Wolfe would be OK with what would be allowed now — something smaller in impact like a small retail store, bookstore, gallery or community center.
Pettway said he believes the best use would be a mix of residential and office, which comes from a former site assessment.
But a 150-seat restaurant and bar? It’s a great concept, Wolfe said, but not there. Not in the middle of a neighborhood.
“Let’s put this where it belongs,” she said.
Steve Diebenow, the attorney for potential restaurateurs Ted Stein and J.C. Demetree, contends the restaurant does belong along Oak Street.
“The overlay allows PUDs,” said Diebenow, referring to the Planned Unit Development designation The Roost requires. “And when faced with that fact, the neighbors who are resistant to change default to emotional arguments.”
Oak Street isn’t a residential corridor, as 4,500 cars travel the Riverside thoroughfare each day, he said.
And homes near properties redeveloped into restaurants end up appreciating in value more quickly than others, said Diebenow.
The developers could have asked for 250 seats and still met parking requirements, but alternatively they also could have done three 60-seat restaurants in the space, he said.
Instead, a 150-seat restaurant was chosen from the outset and despite calls from neighborhood organizations to lower it, there hasn’t been any give.
The 150-seat threshold is key, as it allows a liquor license if 51 percent of sales comes from food.
There has been some compromise in the meetings between developers and those against the project, said Diebenow.
Hours of operations have been reduced so The Roost will close at midnight instead of 2 a.m. Fridays and Saturdays. The parking lot has been redesigned to better comply with landscaping code. Delivery hours have been compressed. And while there will be outside service, there will be no music of any kind allowed.
Both Stein and Demetree live blocks from the site and want to see it help the area.
“This is their neighborhood, too,” said Diebenow.
However, when PROUD took the issues to the area Citizen Planning Advisory Committee — a citizen-based input mechanism for growth — it sided with those against the development.
When the issue came before the Planning Department and Planning Commission, both approved the change for the restaurant.
Those recommendations were before the City Council Land Use and Zoning Committee in a special hearing Wednesday, one that took more than seven hours and still isn’t complete.
Set up almost like a courtroom, Diebenow and attorney Barry Bobek, hired by the opposition, spent the evening making the case for their side through expert witness testimony and arguments.
By 11 p.m., almost 60 people who came to speak hadn’t had their chance.
When they did, the split was about 60-40 split against the development, said council member Jim Love, who represents the district and jokingly called himself the “The Roost referee.”
It’s not the first neighborhood growth dispute Love has been entangled in, nor is it the most contentious. He still gives that distinction to Mellow Mushroom coming to Avondale.
He said developers and neighbors often reach an agreement and such hearings aren’t needed. This is a case where that hasn’t happened, which he believes will mean the losing side will appeal any council decision and head to Circuit Court.
Wolfe said she expects that to happen if the decision goes against concerned residents, but she’s hopeful of an outcome in their favor. Poor zoning anywhere, she said, is a threat to good zoning everywhere.
“I believe in historic preservation and the power of the people,” she said. “I am going to bet on civic engagement.”
Diebenow said he didn’t want to speculate about the outcome.
The land use committee hearing continues at 4 p.m. Monday, with a decision debated by the full council the next day.
The late hearing Wednesday meant a tired Thursday for many of those involved.
Love said he slept in until 9:15 a.m.
“I haven’t slept that late in a long time,” he said.
Pettway needed a brief midday respite himself, but took his usual morning walk with his wife Thursday.
On the way, they ran into one of the developers walking his dog and had a nice, cordial conversation. Both are good guys, said Pettway and Wolfe.
Just because there is a disagreement, it doesn’t mean the neighbors have to be disagreeable — even over a neighborhood issue that appears to be headed toward court.
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