At is April 8 and April 22 meetings, City Council approved updates to the Phelps Grove Neighborhood Plan and an amendment to the neighborhood’s urban conservation district (UCD) regulations.

Phelps Grove Neighborhood Association President Eric Pauly commended Phelps Grove neighbors and City Planning and Development staff, particularly Senior Planner Alana Owen, for their work on the plan.

“Neighbors, we did it! A unanimous vote from City Council in favor of our UCD amendment. This helps us avoid the ‘skinny house syndrome,'” Pauly said, in a Facebook post. “Thank you everyone for your work and support to protect and preserve our neighborhood.”

The process to update the neighborhood plan, which was adopted in 1997, and amend the urban conservation district regulations began in October 2018. A survey, two open houses and a planning workshop followed before the plan was presented to the Planning & Zoning Commission and City Council.

“The updates to the plan and UCD reflect the ongoing priorities of the neighborhood, including the desire to maintain the single-family residential character of the neighborhood, preserving the existing housing stock, and reducing the impacts of student housing and rental properties within the neighborhood,” Owen said.

UCD Amendment

• Minimum lot width requirement of 40 feet for the development or redevelopment of existing nonconforming (grandfathered) lots within the Phelps Grove UCD.

Neighborhood plan recommendations

• Residential infill and rehabilitation regulations for all new construction, exterior remodel and rehabilitation of residential properties in the Phelps Grove UCD.
• The Phelps Grove neighborhood should continue to actively participate in a variety of programs and efforts aimed at discouraging overcrowding and nuisance violations that contribute to the deterioration of the neighborhood character.
• The neighborhood should pursue support from property owners to initiate the development of a community improvement district (CID) that can fund public improvements, such as buried utilities, alley improvements, traffic calming projects, and pedestrian scale lighting improvements.
• The neighborhood should enact an amendment to their bylaws extending their neighborhood association boundaries west to Campbell Avenue to align more closely with the boundaries of the neighborhood service area.
• The cooperative agreement between Missouri State University and the City of Springfield has not been reviewed in over a decade. The City and university should consider pursue completion of the agreement in cooperation with MSU’s Long-Range Plan 2016-2021 Visioning Guide.
• The neighborhood should identify strategies to maintain and grow the neighborhood’s public street tree canopy.
• The neighborhood should further study to determine to determine if there is interest and support for the designation of a local national historic district for properties and places in the neighborhood, not already designated.
• The neighborhood should encourage the City to be vigilant with sidewalk maintenance and to construct and maintain sidewalks where replacement is needed and where gaps exist in the system
• The neighborhood should work with City Utilities to encourage improvements to the street lighting system to increase night-time visibility at the street and sidewalk level.

History

Phelps Grove is home to one of Springfield’s largest collections of bungalow architecture. The Phelps Grove neighborhood and the creation of the subdivisions and park date back to the early 1900s. Phelps Grove Park was originally platted in 1914 and the lots immediately surrounding the park were replatted in 1946. The eastern half of the neighborhood was platted between 1907 and 1909 and the western portion of the neighborhood was platted between 1913 and 1923. Most lots in the neighborhood are 40-50 feet in width, except for the Colonial Place Subdivision, platted in 1909. The Phelps Grove Neighborhood Association was formed in 1989.

Missouri State University purchased property for parking lots on the south side of Grand Street during the 1970s and continued to expand the lots over the next several decades. The neighborhood began to experience the byproducts of increased student rentals in the 1980s. Conflicts between permanent residents and renters intensified due to overcrowding, noise, trash and maintenance of homes and yards. The neighborhood also saw a decline in housing condition at same time, due to the uncertainty of the university’s expansion plans.

The Phelps Grove Neighborhood Association was formed in 1989. In 1990, a parking study was initiated in response to numerous inquiries and complaints regarding on-street parking of commuters within the neighborhood, leaving residents and visitors without adequate parking. To assist with the parking problem and the accompanying concerns of trash, noise and vandalism, a residential parking permit district was created. The two-tiered residential parking district is still in existence today.

In 1993, the City began working with a group of neighborhood residents to prepare a neighborhood and urban conservation district plan to address the transition the neighborhood was experiencing due primarily to overcrowding and to protect and maintain the residential character and viability of the neighborhood. The planning efforts were put on hold for the next few years while the City and MSU developed an agreement about the university’s southern boundary, as well as several other considerations relating to the growth and expansion of the campus. The cooperative agreement between the City and the university was approved in 1996.

“The Phelps Grove Neighborhood Plan and accompanying UCD were the driving forces to begin to stabilize the neighborhood and discourage activities that were leading to the negative impacts the neighborhood was experiencing nearly 20 years ago. Each plan, including this addition, represents a point-in-time review of the neighborhood health and memorializes issues of concern and value in addition to identifying strategies for targeted improvement within the neighborhood,” according to the updated plan.

What is a neighborhood plan?

Neighborhood plans provide guidance and direction to the neighborhood and City in several ways:

• identifies opportunities for the City, property owners, and residents of the neighborhood to proactively improve the neighborhood through increased social interaction and neighborhood betterment projects;
• provides guidance for the designation and amendment of an urban conservation district if needed;
• is a component of the City’s Comprehensive Plan, providing guidance in the implementation of City policies at the neighborhood level, as well as recommending land use amendments within the boundaries of the neighborhood;
• serves as a historical reference.

To view the significant findings, survey results, proposed updates and plan in full, please visit springfieldmo.gov/phelps.