We just believe that this is the wrong place for this fraternity home."
A two-story fraternity house proposed for the 900 block of East Eighth Street met resistance at the Planning Commission meeting on Monday, with residents of the area saying they don’t want to deal with noise, traffic and parties in their backyards.
Construction of the frat house requires a change from R-1 zoning to R-4 Special zoning on the 0.6-acre property behind the Salvation Army building on McCallie Avenue.
The proposed house includes 12 lodging rooms, a common area and a kitchen. Up to two people could share each room. The proposed house would include 33 surface parking spaces.
Building a fraternity or sorority house requires an extra step for permitting in the city, on top of stops at the planning commission and City Council. And the city has already set aside an area on East 10th Street east of Central Avenue for Greek life houses.
Pat Neuhoff, architect at Neuhoff Taylor Architects, represented the proposed fraternity house at Monday’s meeting. He said the proposed house’s owners have already purchased the land.
But area residents said they don’t want the house coming to Eighth Street.
“We just believe that this is the wrong place for this fraternity home,” said Anita Polk-Conley, former president of the M.L. King Neighborhood Association.
She said the neighborhood is open to change, but that the frat house “would be, in my opinion, separate from the other housing that is going on in our neighborhood.”
Leann Riley, who has family with fraternity ties, said she isn’t against Greek life. But she said she’s against it landing in a neighborhood of families and working adults.
“You can’t party without a band, without some noise, without a few canned beverages of your choice,” she said.
But it was Moses Freeman, the city councilman who represents the neighborhood, who put an exclamation mark on residents’ concerns with a passionate rebuke of the proposed frat house.
“This neighborhood, 15 years ago, organized to drive out crime, prostitution, gun sales and the like,” he said.
And “it is a downtown neighborhood,” he added, with a diversity of housing, people, income and color.
He said the neighborhood association got together years ago, and with the help of planning staff, decided where R-1 and R-4 properties should go.
“Just keep it where it is,” he told planning commissioners. “It’s R-1 now, and it should remain R-1.”
Neuhoff responded that in more recent neighborhood plans, planning staff flagged the proposed frat house property as a good spot for multi-family housing.
Neuhoff said the property’s owners estimate the property has been vacant for about 20 years.
Planning commissioners voted to defer action on the frat house rezoning for 60 days to give the property owners and neighbors time to meet.
And being such an impactful project, commissioners urged Neuhoff to bring the property’s owner to the next meeting.
Contact staff writer Alex Green at agreen@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6480.