By JAN LARSON McLAUGHLIN
BG Independent News
After triumphing over a zoning code change, the organized citizens group in Bowling Green has shifted its attention to unregistered rental housing units.
Multiple citizens expressed their thanks to Bowling Green City Council Thursday evening, after council unanimously voted earlier this month to not allow single family homes to be split into duplexes in the older neighborhoods around downtown.
(More stories from City Council will appear over the next few days.)
Since that victory, the organization called Save Our BG Neighborhoods has changed its name to BG STRONG to continue advocacy in support of city neighborhoods and a vibrant downtown.
“We also appreciate the participation of numerous citizens – everyday people, business people, neighbors and friends – who emailed and called our public officials to voice concerns and opinions,” said one of the organizers, Rose Drain. “We all played a role in the challenging process of ‘getting it right.’”
“We believe it was this concerted effort that resulted in our council being responsive to the prevailing community viewpoint – that the older central residential neighborhoods should not be further relegated to housing modifications for business interests, but protected through zoning to provide present residents and prospective future homeowners with decent and affordable housing opportunities.”
David Drain, also one of the organizers, read off a list of future efforts the citizens would like city government to focus on.
First, he suggested the city order rental property owners to pay fines for failure to register their properties. BG STRONG will soon begin to report unregistered rental properties, he said. A city ordinance passed in May of 2021 ordered that all rentals be registered with the city by Dec. 31, 2021.
According to David Drain, more than $6 million could be collected from violations in the Pedestrian Residential neighborhoods surrounding downtown.
He further suggested that the collected fines be put into a specific fund.
“We believe that fines collected for unregistered rental properties should be dedicated to community improvement, rather than simply accruing to the general fund,” he said.
Other ideas presented by Drain included:
- Creation of a design standards commission to establish standards for neighborhoods and assess conformance to those design standards.
- Formation of a committee of people living in or owning businesses in or near the Mixed Use Neighborhood Zones to help plan the development. “In the future, this level of community involvement should be standard practice for legislation anticipated to have a significant effect on the character of any neighborhood in the city,” Drain said.
- Use of a formal body, such as the planning commission, to review conditional use requests for Accessory Dwelling Units and other conditionally allowed uses in residential areas.
- Requirement of one more parking space per bedroom for any addition to an existing property. Parking for former homes converted to apartment buildings is a pervasive problem in the city, he said..
- Creation of a working group to write legislation for short-term rentals.
- Engagement between the city and the citizens group to build a more productive relationship with Bowling Green State University.
