The Manhattan City Commission on Tuesday sent a rezoning request for two properties east of City Park back to the Manhattan Urban Area Planning Board. The applicant, Gavin Schmidt, has been petitioning to rezone 300 North 11th Street and 1020 Leavenworth, for almost a year. Doing so would allow both properties, which currently have deteriorating older homes on them, to potentially be used for single family-attached housing, such as a townhome or duplex.
“If we can allow for more people to live in its urban core, more people get to experience this neighborhood, more people get to interact with these other neighbors, and get to spend a lot of time with them and get the fruits of these awesome areas of town, I feel like this restrictive zoning actually hurts that,” he said. “It’s almost exclusionary to people.”
