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The Columbus Dispatch wrote
Struggle for development in Franklinton
Homes not right fit for neighborhood, leaders say
Sunday, October 28, 2007
By Mark Ferenchik
Vince Gazzara wants to build four houses in Franklinton, the poor Columbus neighborhood of century-old houses just west of Downtown that is struggling to reverse its fortunes. But he doesn’t want to build basements, garages or porches. So neighborhood leaders — as much as they want new construction — don’t want his houses.
The houses Gazzara wants to build aren’t fancy. They’re two-story, vinyl-sided homes on slabs that would sell for $75,000. Carol Stewart, who leads the Franklinton Area Commission, said she wants better.
If nothing else, this episode is another example of the difficulties of building in the city’s core, especially Franklinton, where builders couldn’t go until the massive floodwall around it was finished in 2004.
Related Stories:
- Franklinton: The new Short North?
- City hopes to make Franklinton streets safer
- City demos two more blighted homes in Franklinton
- Franklinton rehabs bring in some new life
Good, stop him.
First of all, vinyl siding should be ‘illegal.’ Thank gosh I live in an area that prohibits the use of such garbage. Franklinton is a great area with much promise. Though lots in Franklinton are available now, it is a similar debate to the one that is raging over downtown land. Though land seems ‘available’ in Franklinton at present, what about the future? I certainly would not want to drive through Franklinton and see any vinyl sided non descript crap homes being built simply for the sake of affordability. Modern pre-fab would be much cooler. Sheesh.
three random people on this board and an hour each in photoshop could set a concrete vision for what we want franklinton to look like. anyone up for a good old fashioned worth100 style makeover of the bottoms? im in if 2 others say yes.
I can help. I can’t draw (much). But my expertise in historic architecture may be of some help.
Here’s the thing. Vinyl siding, in and of itself, itsn’t a bad material. It simply needs to be detailed properly. And like any material, a better quality siding will last longer. There are different qualities of siding… there is cheap wood as well as cheap vinyl. Neither last very long. A quality vinyl siding will run at a similar price point to wood. Install the vinyl so that you eliminate (or minimize) the amount of seams, and it becomes even more expensive.
Appropriate design doesn’t have to be expensive, but it needs to be thoughtfully considered for the individual location. A good architect may be able to design a compatible house that doesn’t have a porch; however, I am convinced from the description that these buildings are just cheaply conceived. Franklinton deserves better, and I hope the area commission gets support from the community and the city and sticks to its standards. Badly designed infill housing will not help to revitalize the area.
Maybe Franklinton should do a design competition.
These are common in planning and architecture.
I’ve seen some in-the-works master plans for Eastern Franklinton (between 315 and the river) development. It looks like it’s got a lot of potential since several large organizations own large tracts of lands there ripe for major projects. A lot of the existing buildings are industrial or commercial, which would lend themselves better to larger housing development projects. I think the big delay in development in this area comes from the fact that some of the major players aren’t really revealing their intentions with their parcels, while others are waiting to sell out and cash in big, but the money isn’t there yet.
If a master plan can be presented to the city and the city can help push it along rapidly I could see the entire East Franklinton area being flipped pretty quick considering its size.
Just for the sake of scale:
East Franklinton:
As for West Franklinton, (where these vinyl-sided houses are getting shot down) it’s a lot more residential in nature and will probably be a much slower redevelopment without as many larger developments popping up anytime soon (think Olde Town East). The whole area is mostly single-family homes and I expect it will stay that way aside from the commercial corridors along Broad and Sullivant.
Walker,
How interested are you in City Planning and related things? You seem to be very interested in these topics. I wondered what the root of that interest is and if you ever considered the CRP Masters program at OSU?
There is a lot of talent on this board. Walker is amazing.
Technically, Walker is a vampire… which is pretty amazing. :shock:
I guess I have a slightly-above-casual interest in City Planning that just grew out of living downtown and sort of keeping track of the various projects going on in the past 5-8 years.
I’m not sure if it would be something I’d want to do full time or not… I assume this is the program you’re currently in? Might have to chat more about it with you in the not-too-distant future…
Yeah- it is the program I am in. They allow vampires (which is the only way I can explain your ability to be so prolific with topics/posts).
I don’t think I want to be a planner, per se. I am thinking a consulting or planning practice that does IT, web, 2d/3d modeling, and is centered around advocacy for the arts.
Anyway, it is pretty interesting. I’m only getting started, so I may not be the most informed. I love it so far, tho.
Thanks. 8)
Double-Thanks! 8) 8)
Haven’t been following the Franklinton development discussions much so far, but from what I have seen I don’t get the sense that anyone has done much research to try to understand what is needed/would be accepted/plays well politically, and then translated that knowledge into proper design parameters. Am I wrong? Obviously, there are many conspicuous problems, but I’m sure there are many that are fairly opaque (‘neighborhood leaders’- what are their hot buttons?, for example).
A design competition is a fantastic idea, but the best designs come from competitions with well thought-out design criteria. If I thought I had any hope of coming to terms with the true scope of the problems to be solved, I’d love to play in that sandbox.
Since no one else is, I’ll stick up for the builder. Design competitions are great, but at his price point, there just ins’t much that can be done. FWIW, most builders would love to have a larger budget and be free to include anything they could dream up to fit the space, but at $75,000, you’re pretty much making tough decisions like whether to include central air or a garage.
Keep in mind that $75,000 would be the price after his profit; I don’t know enough about the program, but he might also be paying realtor commissions out of that as well.
So if you’re going to design something better, try and do it for $60,000. Don’t forget to set aside $5-10,000 grand for sitework and connecting to utilities. Frankly I’m impressed at how much house this guy can build for the money.
…yep, and make sure for this “Design Competition” that your end result is something that will have a price point that someone in real life would pay to live in Franklinton.
p.s. I don’t mean the imaginary, redeveloped Franklinton of the future.
Why don’t we just create our Central Park bounded by Grubb and Belle, and Broad and Town? Cap the train tracks, build a big pond, ballfields, a “great lawn”, a sculpture garden, another museum by COSI, and our own version of “the bean” in Chi-town.
THEN have a design competition! I could see some highrises on Grubb with thier backs turned to 315, beautiful Victorian row homes along Broad and Town, and a few more highrises near the river.
And I agree with Core…the outcome of this design competition needs to be grounded in reality. I don’t think this developer was far off in his estimation of what the current market is in Franklinton, and that’s the rub with this part of town. Unless you have a MASSIVE redevelopment with millions of $$$ sunk into this hood, you’re just going to end up with crappy houses because that’s all the market can take over there.
Also..someone lend Franklinton a hundred bucks to get a better website…
http://www.franklinton.org/bellows%20house.htm
really???
http://www.franklinton.org/bellows%20house.htm
really???
what are you talking about? layered type. awesome retro font use, great whitespace, stunning photography. it all goes with my sarcastically proposed motto (which i know we’re never short of on this board)/
franklinton: just pretend it’s good already.
LOL…my favorite part of that page is that they paste this:
” *includes $10,000 down payment assistance, 6.5% 30-yr fixed mortgage, taxes and insurance (actual payments will vary)”
Which, although floating mid page, I’m assuming is supposed to be a footnote explanation of a price or payment…that isn’t actually anywhere on the page. :shock:
I have not seen what the homes look like that the developer wants to build, but they must be most unapproprate if the city is saying no. I think much of the far eastern side of Franklinton should have smaller cutting edge modern style housing to compliment the industural nature of much of what’s there.
Also the new Rich St. bridge and COSI already will establish a style prescient. Because the much of the housing stock is is either non descript in style or the victim of poorly executed “renovations”, modern architecture might work well in some parts of the neighborhood.
Keep in mind that $75,000 would be the price after his profit; I don’t know enough about the program, but he might also be paying realtor commissions out of that as well.
So if you’re going to design something better, try and do it for $60,000. Don’t forget to set aside $5-10,000 grand for sitework and connecting to utilities. Frankly I’m impressed at how much house this guy can build for the money.
Let’s say, we’re planning on investing $50,000, and making approx 20,000. rather than using that 50 to build a crappy house in a crappy neighborhood… hold the empty lots, invest in rehabbing some of the existing housing on the block. Work on raising the bar of the existing housing stock, so that comparables are selling for 70 or 80,000 (or 100) rather than 50 or 60,000. Then… when the prices of housing in the neighborhood becomes slightly improved, take the undeveloped land you own and construct a modest but approprite house for lot, knowing that you’ll be able to get 100 or 120 for it.
Have developers learned nothing from the Short North model? Rehab the existing structures, then use empty land to build better buildings that provide more return on investment. It’s a positive return cycle based on investment and overall improvement.
If the price point isn’t right for building a better house there, then don’t freaking build it yet.