MONROE — Homeowners living in the Strawberry Lane area just south of the hospital feel blindsided by a plan to upzone their area.
They oppose allowing apartments and mixed-use buildings with apartments above and shops on the bottom. They say city planners should have done neighborhood outreach before proposing this upzone.
It’ll ruin a quiet neighborhood, residents said at last week’s council meeting. Mixed-use would make it less safe and certainly less desirable, one of the homeowners said.
Strawberry Lane is in the “triangle” east of 179th Avenue SE bracketed by 522 and U.S. 2.
The neighborhood features stick-built homes with yards. It was mostly developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s by poultry, dairy and strawberry farmer Lloyd Hansey, newspaper archives show.
The upper half of the triangle is already zoned mixed-use north of 149th Street SE. The Strawberry Lane neighborhood is in the triangle’s lower half and is at the moment zoned for high-density residential.
Monroe’s current mixed-use land code prohibits future single-family residential developments within the mixed-use zone.
The rezone is in the city’s draft comprehensive plan, “Monroe 2044.” Discussions and public input to develop the long-range plan began last year, and it’s typically refreshed every 10 years.
Choices included where the city should upzone to handle about 4,600 more city residents and 2,300 more jobs by 2044.
At the Oct. 22 council meeting, a couple of council members asked city planners to produce alternative options for the Strawberry Lane rezone.
A public hearing about the city’s larger comprehensive plan and rezone plans will be Nov. 12 at 7 p.m. in the school district headquarters, 14841 179th Ave SE, Suite 320. Council will substantively decide whether to approve the plan at its Nov. 19 meeting with final approval in Dec. 3.
Council is able to amend the rezones.
The council discussed the Comprehensive Plan again Oct. 29 after press time.
In a prior comprehensive plan, an entire section of West Monroe between Kelsey Street and 522 was rezoned for higher-density residential.
State law requires the city to adopt its new comprehensive plan by the end of the year.
