Transit’s threat to NoDa

How to route the to-be-built northeast light rail line? CATS officials are pondering that question. Read about it in this story from Sunday’s Observer, from The City section. If you want a public voice, there’s a hearing Tuesday 6-8 p.m. in the fellowship hall at Sugaw (not Sugar) Creek Presbyterian Church, at North Tryon Street and Sugar Creek Road.

I was hoping CATS would route the northeast corridor up North Tryon Street instead of the railroad corridor that parallels North Davidson Street. Apparently that’s not to be, at least between uptown and NoDa. CATS is still considering whether to put a section of the line along North Tryon between Sugar Creek Road and Eastway Drive. North of Eastway, the route follows North Tryon Street.

I’m very worried about the NoDa business district being beset by the same forces that are hitting South End and threatening the Dilworth historic district and its bungalows. Except the NoDa retail area is closer to the rail line than much of Dilworth, and NoDa’s business district has a better preserved “Main Street”-type feel to it than anything that was in Dilworth. That’s all at huge risk, because the Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) zoning that applies to transit station areas allows high-rise buildings of up to 120 feet — or higher if your developer asks for an exemption.

The way land values work, if zoning allows high rise buildings on your land and there’s a strong economic market, eventually you’re likely to have high rises there. Say so long to the Center of the Earth Gallery building, the Evening Muse building, the Neighborhood Theatre building, and say hello to more brutalist modern towers like the reviled, pink Arlington.

Even more threatening to NoDa is that it lacks even the protection Dilworth has as a historic district. NoDa isn’t a local historic district, which requires new development to blend in with the old. Being a historic district hasn’t prevented the bulldozing of some bungalows or the ballooning of others into wannabe McMansions twice the size of the original house. But it’s much better than no protection at all.

If NoDa’s main street were to avoid TOD zoning because the rail stop was put up on North Tryon, then you wouldn’t have those sky high, I-can-build-a-tower land values wreaking quite as much havoc on NoDa’s business district. The super-intense development would instead be a half mile north on North Tryon Street, which heaven knows could use TOD’s better urban design rules as well as stronger economic sizzle. Some South End-style development there would be a very good thing.

In the middle of NoDa, those transit-oriented high-rise buildings would merely kill the special place that has grown up naturally along North Davidson and 36th streets.

One solution would be for the city to craft a more historic-preservation option for TOD, capping heights at three or four stories. Sadly, given the grip developers have on the development-loving city officials, that’s about as likely to happen as I am to be picked as the vice presidential candidate for John McCain or Barack Obama.