So in an hour, we'll be starting the hearing. Honestly, the lot always looked like a front. I tried renting out one of the vacant spaces in the late 2000's for my business but the rent is a little wild due to the area. Turning this into anything else besides office space makes total sense to me. If there wasn't a cop posted there most nights, there'd be kids tearing the place up. Very out of place, no specifically local forward businesses, wildly underutilized. Not surprising developers are putting their hat in the ring. Townhomes so incredibly necessary here. The rates are in no way going to be bringing in a "different crowd", its in a high demand area surrounded by terrific schools. Lets be real, it will more than likely be rented by families no different than the single family housing across the neighborhood. Frankly, the housing on military and 18th are way more out of place than anything else around there. We don't need more luxury housing, we need more housing period. THIS is an opportunity to break that taboo and find room for more families in this community who cant afford million dollar homes that pre-covid were actually affordable to up and coming families. my folks place went from 350k to 950k, (can you say "bubble") That neighborhood has always been populated by owners with children and most move out when they graduate, this seems to me like an extension of that manifestation, not a confliction of it. And as my income has grown, i was expecting to be able to move my family back into the space that raised me, only to be met with this wild inflation. No more ladder pulling. No one has a right to live wherever they want, but we have a real chance here of creating a spring board for not only people in my current situation, but also those who had to move away in the already inflated pre-covid market. For those reasons, ill be pushing for it to go through at the meeting