Planning staff outline 20-year Duke Street land-use framework emphasizing preservation and opportunity sites
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Summary
Staff presented an early draft of a 20-year Duke Street corridor plan that identifies redevelopment 'opportunity sites', areas for housing preservation, and small-business clusters; the plan prioritizes affordable housing preservation, improved parks and transit-aligned growth and will proceed through public workshops and a draft expected this fall.
Planning staff briefed council on early findings from the Duke Street corridor land-use update, describing guiding principles and a long-range framework intended to manage redevelopment pressure, preserve affordable housing and retain neighborhood-serving retail.
Planner Carrie Beach and colleagues said the corridor accounts for roughly 15% of the city’s population and contains a disproportionately high share of the city’s market-rate affordable rental units (much of it at or below 80% AMI). Staff identified roughly 90 acres of commercial opportunity sites that could grow housing and retail without displacing existing homes and flagged a 55-acre city-campus parcel as a strategic site where the city controls land and can consider long-range options.
Staff emphasized several themes from community outreach: traffic and safety improvements, housing affordability and preservation, small-business retention (noting many small business rents at roughly $25 per square foot or less), and the need for more park and open-space access in the corridor’s center. Jeff, a planning lead, summarized the sentiment: “it doesn’t feel planned. It doesn’t feel connected,” and said the plan aims to stitch neighborhoods together through consistent streetscape and targeted nodes of required vs. optional retail (Fox Chase and Alexandria Commons as neighborhood-serving nodes; Landmark Mall as a regional retail node).
Councilmembers asked about integrating the plan with school-bus and DASH transit facility planning and about tools for preserving small-business affordability and grocery anchors. Staff said the plan will coordinate with the city’s housing master plan, transportation studies, park planning and the budget process, and that next steps include additional public workshops, a draft for public review around September and a public hearing later in the calendar year.
