jjakucyk

^ That's the southeast corner of Observatory and Stettinius.

$42 million for this sprawl exit that nobody's even heard of, $20 million to rebuild the Union Centre exit that's only 20 years old, $100 million (supposedly, final numbers don't seem to be available anywhere) for the I-71 MLK exit, all given a pass while the streetcar is constantly bombarded with toxic rhetoric.

That's the worst kind of pearl-clutching NIMBY-ism that exists, and they would apply that same "logic" to ADUs since they're usually closer to side and rear lot lines than these houses on subdivided lots, which keep in mind still have to comply with the underlying zoning. So I think if ADUs are allowed, people like this would make sure the regulations are so onerous as to de facto ban them. They think this is Indian Hill where you can have 5+ acres of buffer around your house, not a city neighborhood, but even Indian Hill doesn't allow ADUs.

That's not really a zoning designation. Generally the Auditor and CAGIS property reports show not zoning but existing land use. Yes you can turn on the zoning overlay on the CAGIS website, but you could have a grandfathered 2-family in an SF-6 (single-family) zoning district, and the Auditor would report the former, not the latter.

Well yes but Savannah is also 10x the size of Madison.

Madison is a river town that stagnated after railroads surpassed riverboats as the dominant means of transportation. It's on no major roads or railroads, so when travel patterns shifted it was just kind of left alone. There was still enough economic activity to maintain the place, but not so much that it was ever appreciably redeveloped. Similar reasons (though on a larger scale) are given for Prague's well-preserved built environment. The trouble with Madison is that while it was a prototype for Main Street preservation efforts, it looks like there was little to no attempt to support the Main Street program with complimentary regional land-use planning. Much of the economy seems to be decanted out to North Madison along Clifty Drive and the usual "asteroid belt" of strip malls, fast food joints, big box stores, and a surprising number of industrial facilities stretching out into the cornfields. A splattering of disjointed residential subdivisions occupy the space between there and the historic town center. This has certainly pulled a lot of the vitality away from Main Street.

A contractor acquaintance of mine said someone wanted to renovate the building a couple years ago but their budget was woefully inadequate. Not sure what they wanted to do with it though, and if it's changed hands since. Industrial/workshop buildings like that are so rare anymore, it'll be nice to see one fixed up, I just hope it's done decently.

At the very least the curb/sidewalk on the north side of Madison wasn't moved, it was just rebuilt in place. It appears that Madison is only 45 feet wide so the current 5-lane configuration really isn't appropriate. It's generally regarded that lanes less than 10 feet wide lead to more crashes and incidents like jumping curbs and whatnot. I don't know if it reduces incidents involving pedestrians or cyclists, but 10 feet is the sweet spot. The simplest solution would be to allow permanent street parking at the curb, which only needs to be 7-8 feet, leaving room for three 30 foot lanes. Instead of parking it could be buffered bike lanes. You could do the Chicago thing with parking plus bike lanes, leaving just one vehicle travel lane each way. https://goo.gl/maps/miTX2pb7hw8mY8NS8 At intersections the parking stops and the bike lanes move over to allow room for a left turn lane. East of Whetsel is an absolute mess. Nebulous parking bays, lanes that wander left and right, wide seemingly uncontrolled pavement. Past the railroad overpass the street narrows a couple of feet and it looks like there's two lanes each way but it's not striped, etc.

I'll just leave this here. Heartbreaking.

Oh yes Sander was 27 stories tall, it was quite large.

These two estate houses on Madison between Dexter and Wold have sizable carriage/guest houses in back. Again, no idea what their occupancy situation is. https://goo.gl/maps/bARmPzE39wDp2sUe7 This one in East Walnut Hills has always fascinated me. It's hard to see on street view because of the trees. It's more of a side yard cottage/carriage house, with some weird additions. It may not be occupied either, but it's one of the bigger examples. https://goo.gl/maps/ToZ4ipw91LUg2weDA Same street, just down the block, is this garage with an upstairs apartment of some sort. Note that currently, accessory buildings are limited to 800 SF and 15' tall (Cincinnati measures half way up gable roofs to establish height). https://goo.gl/maps/Vg1bjRLn2494GQKN7 Here's another two-story garage/apartment on Observatory in Hyde Park. https://goo.gl/maps/fidvAnJFYJTWDvzH6 And another on Upland Place. https://goo.gl/maps/DSSL5XBDgfxHEijD9 Here's one on Nassau that looks more like an office. I'm not even sure which is the primary structure. https://goo.gl/maps/yr3XVhiMNndRGFry5 Here's a Clifton example that's actually on an alley for a change. https://goo.gl/maps/DubCuFRzLMrzCXU76 Noticing a pattern? These are all pretty expensive houses. I'm not saying that's the only factor, but it's a big one. With a lack of alleys, they were generally the only properties big enough to fit such accessory buildings and access to them. I suspect that made them mostly servant or in-law apartments versus public rentals though, because you had to pass through the front/side/rear yard of the main house to get there. Even where there are alleys, most of Cincinnati's are so narrow that they're not even used as utility easements, and garbage trucks can't fit down them either. So unless you're on an alley/street corner, they can be pretty desolate and non-conducive to development.

Yeah that's pretty much it. The city was on the verge of implementing a whole new zoning code as well. How form-based it was, I don't know, but for a time they had a "new zoning" layer on the CAGIS maps and draft copies of the code for review. Cranley put the kibosh on that as well because he doesn't think they're "developer friendly" and he just doesn't understand them. Welcome to the forum!

Travis beat me to the punch but I'll trundle on anyway. Retail would be a big mistake, since there's no pass-by traffic whatsoever. Even Robertson isn't really that much of a through route. Montgomery Road/Surrey Square is just a half mile away and has much more visibility. A low-key brewery/taproom might work ok, but it would be a one-and-done with nothing else likely to survive or even bother trying. Any potential retail/restaurant tenant would look at this site and note that within a 1-mile radius there's plenty more underutilized sites with much better visibility and access.

There being no legal way to cross the railroad tracks on foot/bike, or even by car on surface streets, between Forest Avenue and Madison Road is criminal. That's a full 1.2 mile barrier. The old Duck Creek Road tunnel next to I-71 is technically closed, even if it is passable, but it doesn't really get you anywhere. Even as a supposedly fearless cyclist, I avoid biking to the Oakley Station side because Madison/Vandercar is the only real access. A crossing at 34th or Verne can't come soon enough.

Wow, they're demolishing half the original building just so they can ram a street through there at an arbitrary angle? It's not Rookwood Commons, it's Rookwood Pavilion, leaving just a couple small fragments of the old facility in a haphazard melange of banality.

All the charm of Tyson's Corner. There's nothing at street level whatsoever. It's basically this: https://goo.gl/maps/RjeEue9x7TMewTBh9

My brother told me housewarming parties aren't a thing anymore. I don't know if that's true or him being antisocial. ?‍♂️

As an idea, designers love them, but as usual the practicalities just aren't there. The biggest problem is they aren't insulated, so you have to build out a whole new wall on the inside. You can't really just slap rigid foam in and plaster over it because you can't attach anything to that like cabinets or window treatments. So it's 2x4's and fiberglass and drywall and now what's the point of the container? Ceiling heights are limited, and overall dimensions are obviously constrained. Any penetrations require painstaking drilling or a plasma torch, and then trying to detail those so they look good and don't leak is a pain because of the corrugated metal. Thanks, but not for me.

They are not. A few exceptions exist in neighborhoods that adopted form-based code overlays, but I don't think it's universal among those either. Cincinnati's overall lack of alleys is a factor in this as well. Large deep lots where there's no access to the rear except walking path.

Conversely, follow the Mill Creek Valley north and, with a couple of interruptions, it doesn't become truly suburban until you're past Lockland/Reading.

They're not taking any prisoners with this one. I'm surprised they're stripping even the original building down so much. Woof.

I thought that aerial looked familiar. I cleaned up the color and exposure back in 2016.

There's steam and then there's hot water. I can buy the argument for hot water especially when air conditioning is not needed, and if you're using radiant under-floor or perimeter baseboards, but steam is less efficient, noisier, and harder to control and maintain. I don't buy @GCrites80s argument about everything being warm. I grew up in a house with radiators, and where I live now has them too. The walls are still cold, the windows are still drafty, and the floors aren't warm. Without a ceiling fan the hot air pools up at the ceiling too and heat doesn't move to corners or through doorways.

The three story base to the left is actually newer than the original 8-story tower on the right. I don't remember the dates, but I think we're talking 1920s or 1930s versus early 1900s. The addition was structured to be 8-stories tall, but maybe the Depression or other financial factors caused them to shelve it.