Over in Greensboro

Growing pains in Irving Park
By Jim Schlosser | Greensboro News & Record
Friday, Nov. 2, 2007 3:00 am

Amid yard signs touting City Council candidates, another kind of sign is popping up in exclusive Irving Park.

"Let's preserve the character of Old Irving Park ..." the signs say.

Irving Park carries with it a deep history in Greensboro. It has been a "good" neighborhood since it began in 1911. Quoting one resident, the teardown trend "is changing the appearance of Irving Park." She adds that it is a "unique neighborhood'' and was designed by two renowned early 20th-century landscapers, northerners John Nolen and Robert Cridland.

"It is not the teardowns that upset everyone in Irving Park, that is to be expected a little with age. It is what is being built on those empty lots."

This is the chorus to songs being sung in older neighborhoods across this land. The times they are a changing. But are zoning regulations the answer, or consciousness raising, sensitivity training for the builders, Golden Rule lessons for the buyers? I suggest a visit to news-record.com for the complete article.

Here's a clue, tho.

Although many replacement houses have blended well, others meet only minimum setback requirements — and those are meager, [the resident] says.

The rules mandate houses stand at least 30 feet from main roads, such as Sunset and Country Club drives, and 25 feet on smaller streets.

In the old days, setbacks hardly mattered. Wealthy families built large houses far back to allow for spacious lawns.

The city has yet to approve an NCO district. Westridge Road's application is winding through the approval process, which Sertell says can take six to 18 months. ...

Although some of Irving Park's 719 property owners surely will oppose being an NCO district, [the resident] says, "Everyone has come up to me, and said we should have done this 75 years ago.''