What do we most need on the historic Westside? Lots of answers come to mind.
We need better road maintenance (especially in alleys and side streets), better snow removal, more street trees to replace those that have been blown down or withered away, better park maintenance, fewer homeless encampments and less through-traffic on two-lane residential streets.
Homeowners can (and should) plant street trees on their frontage, but everything else is the city’s responsibility. And as always, we’re fighting with dozens of other neighborhoods for our share of municipal largesse.
What we need is a lively, growing, constantly revivifying historic neighborhood, one that is resilient, resourceful and oriented to a bright future. To look forward, our biggest need is simple: we need more kids.
Neighborhoods without kids are lifeless. Kids laugh, cry, run around, make friends, go to neighborhood schools and grow up among their peers. I vividly remember growing up on the North End in the 1940s, when it was somewhat run down, shabby and unpretentious.
Homes were relatively inexpensive, and young families abounded. Many of the kids I played with are still Springs residents, and still call me by my hated childhood nickname: Nozwell.
We geezers are aging in place.
Nowadays, young families tend to head for suburbia. They seek good schools, kid-friendly neighborhoods and affordable houses. Many of them might be tempted to move to the Westside, but there’s a simple problem with no easy solution: There aren’t enough houses and relatively few young families.
We geezers are aging in place. Our friends are here, we love our city and the cost of moving elsewhere seems prohibitive.
So how do we create more homes?
We need more backyard, side-yard or semi-detached houses and cottages that are occupied by owners or long-term renters. We have some, but soaring construction costs and the proliferation of short-term rentals is sucking the life out of the neighborhood.
If these trends continue, we won’t be a neighborhood, but a false-front representation of one.
Here are some solutions:
The city and Westside leaders need to stop dithering and move to protect the neighborhood from continuous commercial invasion. That means putting a hard cap on short-term rentals that diminishes every year, and incentivizing homeowners to build accessory units for long-term rental or sale.
To list the barriers to such a path would make your head spin. Yet, the Westside’s permissive zoning and historic ambiance has caused it to be targeted by real estate investors, not families.
And yeah, I’m not a disinterested party.
Directly across the street from our Westside house is a vacant lot, occupied from 1893-2021 by a one-story cottage. It was home to a family of four until the kids were grown and the parents sold it to a developer and moved away. The cottage was demolished, and rumor has it that plans are afoot to build a two-story duplex.
That’s great — as long as it isn’t a short-term rental!
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