A Rebuttal to 'On Fair Certainty—A Defense of Lexington Club'

My friend Brian Doyle (a member of the St. Charles Plan Commission) recently offered a . I know Brian to be a very thoughtful person, and I know from conversations with him that he gave the arguments both for and against the Lexington Club proposal full and fair consideration when the application was in front of the Plan Commission.  Brian’s essay is essentially an apologia for fairness that is devoid of emotional appeals, as governmental deliberations ought to be. His argument is for one of “fair certainty;” the idea that the parties entering into a venture should know what the rules are, know that the rules will be upheld, and know that those rules will not be changed on them midway though the process. I accept Brian’s thesis that the 2007 Comprehensive Plan Amendment (CPA) must be the rulebook that governs any proposed redevelopment plans for the former Applied Composites site. While Brian has argued “fair certainty” must be upheld for the developer, my rebuttal is that “fair certainty” must also be upheld for the residents.

As Brian explained, the CPA was a community effort. Input was taken from residents, and the elected officials affirmed it. This action created a bond of trust between the city government and the residents, who were led to believe that the CPA established design guidelines against which any proposal would be judged. Based on this, I believe that a reasonable person, reading through the CPA, would come to reasonable expectations as to what kind of development would be delivered to the community, believing that any development would have to meet most, if not all, of the benchmarks established in the CPA. What follows is my attempt to comb through the CPA and point out the places where the proposed Lexington Club development appears to have departed from the original goals of the CPA. With each of the points discussed, I believe that a reasonable person, with reasonable expectations set by the CPA, would believe that those expectations had not been met.

The CPA sets the expectation that any development will “preserve the character of the surrounding neighborhood” by maintaining “the existing typology of the surrounding residential neighborhood through the interconnection of streets and similar types of housing styles” (page 7) and that “future development within the study area should be an extension of the development pattern of the existing older neighborhoods generally located south of the former Applied Composites site. These adjoining residential areas consist of a diversity of housing stock including detached single-family homes on a variety of lot sizes, duplexes and small-scale multi-family structures” (page 12).  In other words, any proposed development should look and feel like the existing neighborhood that surrounds the redevelopment site.  Where streets are concerned, the proposed extension of the street grid (one of the bedrock defining elements of the neighborhood) is weak at best, and instead of adding to the architectural character of the existing neighborhood, 80% of the proposed units (townhouses and rowhouses) are of two housing styles that are completely alien to the existing neighborhood.  Additionally, even some of the proposed single-family home designs are also stylistically alien to St. Charles.

The CPA sets the expectation that any development will “provide buffers or transition areas between different uses such as industrial and residential” (page 7) and that “effective screening may include a combination of fencing and landscaping as well as creative building design that becomes a part of an effective transition.  Measures to attenuate noise emanating from industrial facilities should also be considered as part of any development plan” (page 13). Here, the proposed development seems to fall completely flat. In each of the places in need of such buffering/sound attenuation between residential and industrial uses, the proposal offers what appears to be nothing more than what would be supplied if the adjacent building were simply another residence.

The CPA sets the expectation that any development will “locate any areas of redevelopment that have a higher density away from existing lower density development, and provide appropriate transitions between dissimilar uses” (page 7). Although points should be given to the developer for using the retention ponds as a method to buffer most of the proposed higher density residential development from the existing lower density residential neighborhood, the fact remains that a child could stand in the front or rear yard of several of the proposed homes and hit an adjacent working factory or industrial building with a thrown baseball.

The CPA sets the expectation that the city will “require high quality construction for new development” (page 7). In stark contrast to this, the developer has requested a waiver from the construction standards set by ’ ordinance. Furthermore, one could argue that since the building code sets only minimum standards, the “high quality construction” invoked by the CPA could only logically mean construction materials and/or methods that go beyond the minimum threshold set by the building code; seeking to actually lower the bar for construction standards is clearly not what the CPA contemplated.

The CPA sets the expectation that “there should be a variation of lot sizes to reflect the variety found in the existing historic St. Charles neighborhoods” (page 9). Comparing only the proposed single-family homes to existing single family homes in the neighborhood, the proposed plan (with the exception of three end lots) seems to provide only two lot sizes for that housing type: 56’ x 110’ or 58’ x 110’; a variance of 3.57 percent. In contrast, lot sizes in the existing neighborhood vary by more than 200 percent.

The CPA sets the expectation that “Mark Street should continue to the west and eventually connect to 12th Street. Both Seventh and Ninth streets should connect to Mark Street. A second east-west road south of Mark Street between Seventh and 12th streets should also be studied to provide a much needed connection and means of egress” (page 11). Of those four objectives, only one was fully met (Ninth Street does connect to Mark Street in the proposed plan).

The CPA sets the expectation that “a variety of housing choices and price ranges should be distributed throughout the development, rather than being located in one area ...The architectural design of all the housing types should support the ability to provide a mix of housing in which each structure contributes to creating an attractive streetscape and a diverse overall neighborhood” (page 12). In contrast to the diverse, egalitarian planning present in the existing neighborhood, the proposed development limits the housing to just three types (with just one type accounting for 72 percent of all units), and economically segregates the development by placing all the rowhouses in one discreet area, all the single-family homes in a second discreet area, and all the townhouses in a third discreet area (with the exception of four townhouse buildings that are on Seventh Street).  Compounding this problem is the fact that the townhouses are easily the most repetitious, monotonous element of the proposed development, and I am unsure how a street faced on both sides by these buildings will contribute to an “attractive streetscape and a diverse overall neighborhood.”

Furthermore, the developer has requested total relief from the Inclusionary Housing Ordinance, which means, by default, that the diversity of income levels that will be welcomed into this development will be curtailed. Yes, the developer has agreed to attempt to find funding sources to underwrite the construction of the required affordable housing units, but there are absolutely no guarantees that any funding will ever be secured, or that any of these units will ever be built.

The CPA sets the expectation that “garages accessed from the street should be de-emphasized with setbacks to move the garage further into the lot from the established ‘build to line,’ and beyond the primary building façade” (page 12). Thus, the streetscape in the proposed development should not look like a virtual wall of garage doors—a sight that is totally alien in the existing neighborhood, as the vast majority of homes have either detached garages or no garages. To the developer’s credit, the single-family and rowhouses (28 percent of the proposed units) uphold this design guideline. However, the townhouses (72 percent of the proposed units), fail to meet this guideline, as their streetscape will likely feel like a virtual wall of garage doors. 

The CPA sets the expectation that “any newly constructed homes should be able to be clearly and easily categorized into one [of] these seven [Craftsman, American Four Square, Queen Anne, Tudor Style, Dutch Colonial, Prairie Style, and Vernacular Style] St. Charles common styles. Using this variety of styles and design variances within each style, the ‘cookie cutter’ effect of similar homes found in newer developments will be avoided” (page 14). I believe the proposed development has utterly failed in this regard, as the rowhouses and townhouses fall neither typologically nor stylistically within any precedent set by the neighborhood to the south, nor in any other historic building stock in St. Charles of which I am aware. Adding to the alienation is that they seem to do almost nothing to avoid the “cookie cutter” effect mentioned in the CPA.

Finally, the proposed single-family home designs also fail to meet the expectations set by the CPA to abide within the seven historic styles present in the older sections of St. Charles. The proposed development adopts six of the sanctioned styles, but then feels free to add in two completely un-sanctioned and alien styles in the form of “French Country” and “Old English” styles. Furthermore, there is no indication that the proposed models will incorporate the CPA’s directive for “design variances within each style.” The proposed home designs come off as mere shadows of the historic styles from which they claim to seek inspiration, as they all seem to be modeled off virtually the same basic building massing; they read as if they are minor variations of the same home, dressed up in eight different sets of clothes. 

Part of what makes the existing neighborhood special, as is true throughout St. Charles’ older neighborhoods, is the diversity of housing styles, materials, colors, building placements, and sizes. On any one block, styles, materials, colors, setbacks from the street, and garaging (if any) will vary, and the sizes of the homes may vary by as much as 100 percent. Compared to that precedent, the proposed development offers single-family homes that have weak stylistic pedigree, what one imagines will be a limited palette of materials and colors, setbacks that will probably vary by little, if any, garages that will be uniformly front-loaded, and home sizes that will be uniform to within 10-15 percent (if memory serves me correct). To address just one of the proposed home designs, actual Four Square homes in the existing neighborhood typically have shallow roof pitches, deeply overhanging eaves, dormers that are wider than they are high, some with entries on center, some with entries that are off-center, some are brick, some are stucco, some are clapboard, and they typically do not come with shutters. There is not much similarity between the developer’s proposed elevation for this style of home and examples of the real thing, located just two blocks south of the proposed development.

In conclusion, the concept of “fair certainty” is a vitally important one. The developer deserves fair certainty so he can operate in a stable business climate.  The residents and business owners in the neighborhood deserve “fair certainty” so they can be assured that promises made as to the nature of future changes to their neighborhood will be promises kept. Both the developer and the residents have had possession of the rulebook meant to be the standard-bearer of that “fair certainty” for over four years now. We want to see that site developed into something of which we can all be proud; we want that site developed in a manner that fully respects the wishes of the community as expressed in the Comprehensive Plan Amendment of 2007.