A developer's bid to more than double the height limit on a vacant Riverside Heights riverfront site has split the neighborhood, with some residents welcoming new housing and retail and others warning it would set a precedent that erodes one of Bellwater's few remaining mixed-income neighborhoods.
A proposal to rezone a stretch of riverfront parcels in Riverside Heights for a mixed-use development of shops, offices and roughly 260 apartments drew a packed and contentious crowd to a city planning commission hearing this week, exposing a rift between neighbors who want the vacant land developed and others who fear it will accelerate displacement in one of Bellwater’s more economically mixed neighborhoods.
The developer, a regional firm called Larkspur Urban Partners, is seeking to rezone roughly four acres along River Road from light-industrial to mixed-use, a change that would allow buildings up to six stories, well above the neighborhood’s current three-story cap. The land has sat mostly vacant since a metal fabricating plant closed there more than a decade ago.
Neighbors split over what “mixed-income” means
City Council Member Aisha Muhammad, who represents Riverside Heights and chairs the council’s housing committee, said she supports rezoning the site but wants a binding commitment on affordability before it advances to a council vote. “Riverside Heights has managed to stay mixed-income longer than almost any neighborhood in this city,” Muhammad said. “I’m not going to be the one who lets that slip away because we were in a hurry to fill a vacant lot.”
Larkspur’s proposal includes 15 percent of units, or 39 apartments, set aside at income-restricted rents, a figure the company says matches or exceeds the threshold set in the city’s transit corridor requirements approved last year. Company vice president Holly Ferraro said the project would also include a public riverwalk connection and ground-floor retail space reserved for local businesses at below-market lease rates for the first five years.
“We understand this is a neighborhood people care deeply about, and we designed around that,” Ferraro said. “This isn’t a Foundry Row-style project parachuting in. We’ve held four community meetings before we even filed the rezoning application.”
That outreach has not quieted opposition. A group calling itself Riverside Heights United, formed in the months after the rezoning application was filed, argues the six-story height allowance would set a precedent that erodes the neighborhood’s remaining detached housing stock and small apartment buildings, driving up land values and, eventually, rents on surrounding blocks.
Everyone loves the idea of a riverwalk until they realize the six-story building next to it means their landlord’s property just tripled in value on paper, and so does their next lease renewal.
Nadia Okonski, Riverside Heights United organizer and 12-year neighborhood resident
Nadia Okonski, one of the group’s organizers, said residents are not opposed to development on the vacant parcels but object to the scale of the height increase and want firmer guarantees the affordable units will be delivered on the same timeline as market-rate apartments, not phased in later. She cited the ongoing lawsuit over affordable units at the Foundry District Lofts as a cautionary example from elsewhere in the city.
Planning commission sends the matter back for revisions
After nearly four hours of public comment, the planning commission voted 5-2 to send the rezoning application back to Larkspur Urban Partners for revisions, rather than approving or rejecting it outright. Commissioners cited concerns about the phasing of affordable units and asked the developer to study a scaled-back height option of four to five stories along the portion of the site closest to existing single-family homes.
Ferraro called the delay disappointing but said the company would return with revised plans within roughly two months. “We’d rather take the extra time and get the neighborhood on board than force something through that a third of the room hates,” she said.
Muhammad said she saw the commission’s decision as a reasonable middle path, and pointed to Riverside Heights’ history as evidence the neighborhood could accommodate careful growth. “This isn’t a neighborhood that’s anti-development,” she said. “It’s a neighborhood that has watched what happened in Foundry Row and doesn’t want a repeat.”
Some residents, though, said they worry the revision process will simply produce a slightly smaller version of the same project. Okonski said her group plans to keep organizing regardless of what Larkspur submits next, including pushing the council to require the affordable units be built in the project’s first phase, not spread across a multi-phase build-out.
“We’ve seen how phased promises work out in this city,” Okonski said. “We’re not interested in another lawsuit five years from now. We’d rather get the guarantees in writing before the shovels are in the ground.”
The revised application is expected to return to the planning commission within two months, with a council vote to follow if the commission recommends approval. Muhammad said she intends to hold a separate community meeting in Riverside Heights before that vote, independent of any sessions the developer organizes.
City planning staff said the revised proposal will also need to address parking and traffic concerns raised by residents on River Road, where street parking is already limited during evening hours near the neighborhood’s small commercial strip. Ferraro said Larkspur is studying an underground garage option that would add cost to the project but could ease some of the traffic objections raised at the hearing.