Kansas City is being held back by the opinion that nothing should be larger or different from what already is.  If folks 100 to 70 years ago had held to that view there would be no colonnade apartment buildings, no Power and Light building, no mid-rise apartments on the Plaza, no Union Station. The things we love about KC were brought into being by people that had a vision of a KC different from and greater than it was in their day.  

Agreed wholeheartedly. I thought one of the big advantages the city had over the burbs was the diversity of its housing stock. If you want neighborhoods where all the buildings have the same style, just drive south along Switzer.

Amen.

You can take a drive down Ward Parkway, I believe, between Gregory and 74th and see identical housing stock except for slight changes in front elevations.

There are many, many blocks in that part of KC with houses built in the 1930s that are all the same floor-plan, with maybe three or four different façades to try to break the monotony.

Suburbs are suburbs.  And most of Kansas City proper is a suburb.

While the houses on any given block or few may be of very much the same style (as they were built about the same time), you surely won't argue that the housing stock across Kansas City south of the river doesn't exhibit a much broader range of types and period styles than the housing stock across Johnson County.

i would actually argue that JoCo has a very diverse housing stock.  NE JoCo has lots of early 20th century housing stock that is not terribly dissimilar from the Plaza/BKS/Ward Parkway area of KCMO.  you have cape cods, tudors, basic ranches, and of course the mansions of mission hills which display a range of styles.  there are varying styles and sizes of ranches built from the 1940s to at least the 1970s all over PV, Leawood, Mission Hills, north OP, etc.  lots of fugly 1970s duplexes and split-levels all over JoCo.  apartment complexes representing every era of architecture from at least the 1960s through the 2000s.  farther south you have more 1990s-2000s McMansions, which do look quite similar, but just like the various subdivisions of BKS/Waldo each neighborhood might skew towards a more specific style or size.  there are also old farmhouses sprinkled throughout JoCo which add a bit of character.

that said, i personally think that the residential styles you see in the River-Crown-Plaza-Waldo corridor of KC are more appealing and classic, and often made from superior materials, but i really wouldn't say it's substantially more "diverse" than JoCo, architecturally. 

i personally think the "cookie cutter" aspect of suburbia is exaggerated - or, at least, the cookie cutter aspect of urban architecture is ignored.  i mean there are huge swaths of places like philadelphia, st. louis, boston, etc. that are basically the exact same rowhouse style or whatever.  neighborhoods in KC are somewhat more varied, at least in color (due to our ability to paint the homes) but for example my neighborhood, south hyde park, is pretty much the same on a block by block basis.  holmes st. is mostly bungalows, charlotte and campbell are mostly 2-story shirtwaist type houses, and harrison is mostly 3-story shirtwaist houses.  there are apartment buildings mixed in here and there, which does break things up a bit, but the similarities in the buildings are more noticeable than the differences, imo.  again, i prefer the architectural styles in my neighborhood vs., say, a similarly-sized swath of prairie village or south overland park, but i am not that convinced that the "cookie cutter" aspect of JoCo (or any other suburban area of KC) is greater than the urban core.  it's more a matter of scale, mix of uses, and style of homes, not architectural diversity.

I would say the Northeast has the most diverse housing stock in the urban core. Its like Columbus Park, the Westside, the Eastside, Midtown, Hyde Park, strawberry hill, and Brookside all in one. While listing those neighborhoods I realized how many awesome neighborhoods KC has.

My thoughts mirror chrizow's, for the most part.  Whether urban or suburban, residential developments built out at the same time are almost always very homogeneous.  To the extent that urban areas are more architecturally diverse, it's often due to buildings having been replaced, which is a function of age and consequent changes in land-use demand.  The housing stock in south KC is almost all original, for whatever reason (probably because it's still not particularly old, and because of the suburban-style zoning), so it's still very suburban in character.

As far as the architecture itself, I think two of the reasons newer suburbs feel much more cookie-cutter are that (a) they are even lower density, which dissipates whatever architectural diversity does exist, and that (b) large attached, front-facing garages dominate the façades of almost all new suburban homes and make them all look more or less alike. The somewhat higher density and the detached garages of pre-war inner suburbs—and their adherence to the established street grid—make them feel a bit more urban, in my opinion, but they're essentially similar to newer suburbs.

NE JoCo = Raytown + curbs.

Older neighborhoods that have similar houses that were built at the same time in volume by a builder tend to be less cookie cutter over time.  After decades, people change the appearance of their homes adding porches, different roofing, changing out windows and doors, siding, etc.

You see streets filled with these similar houses because builder bought materials in bulk and used a few plans.  Houses on Gladstone Boulevard are not as similar because those were custom-built homes constructed after the owner purchased a vacant lot. They often had different architects, and builders. You see more variety in styles on a street like Gladstone because each owner had different taste and picked the house they wanted.

The house next to mine is basically the same house with the same floorplan. The big difference is the siding.  My neighbor's house has white asbestos shingle siding and my house has tan rock siding.  I have different windows than my neighbor, since the previous owner upgraded. My neighbor has the original windows.  My house has a wood deck and the neighbor has the orginal concrete pad. We have different front doors. His house has shutters on some windows, and mine doesn't. He also has awnings and I don't.

Our houses don't look anything alike other than the basic shape.  There are other houses in this neighborhood that are built off the same plan as ours.  It's interesting to walk around and see them, and how different they all look over time as people have modified the appearance.

The thing about many suburban subdivisions that maintain the cookie cutter look of the neighborhood is that people still have the original paint and siding.  There are also covenants in many subdivisions that prevent owners from changing the appearance of their homes--down to the paint color and what they can landscape with.

I've always wondered why the PV and Fairway starter homes haven't been as drastically remodeled as those in, say, Levittown. Aerial photos of Levittown in its early years show a development that's the definition of cookie cutter. By the 1970s and 1980s, there have been so many additions that it's tough to find two houses that are still alike. Sure, some of the starter homes in PV and Fairway have been expanded over the years, but the majority haven't.

The question is, why? Building codes and ordinances that made major additions difficult or expensive? I don't think that bigger, cheaper houses in the exurbs were the reason why NE JoCoers generally didn't expand their homes because I grew up not far from Levittown, and there were plenty of Olathes and Lees Summits to decamp to.

I think one of the biggest changes is the aspect that for a period of 20 to 30 years or so people found it easier and/or cheaper to move instead of building on or converting space.  The choice my wife and I took was to move on.  A couple next door to our first home, we are still friends, decided to add on - as well as a few others on the block.  For many houses built in the 50's and 60's, for example in Ruskin Heights, owners converted garages to living space.  Many houses built before the 70's (say before split levels) that had basements had unfinished space to expand into.  Afterwards many houses built (split levels became popular) came with basements partially finished.

But Levittown residents had a comparable selection in Suffolk County, yet those chose to stay and expand. They could still hop on the LIRR or LIE to get to their job in the city, so proximity and access to transit apprently weren't factors. I'm trying to figure out why they stayed.

But who choose to stay and expand?  Original owners?  2nd owners?  3rd owners?  When were they expanded.  As I said many houses were expanded up to the 70's but it has been my observation that afterwards people moved instead of expanding.

All good questions. In the case of Levittown, it was a mix of original and subsequent owners.

Although I did extensive remodeling to my Fairway house, I didn't expand it because doing so would have made it worth far more than comps.

How about we return to the subject at hand? The size and style of the houses in this area are pretty irrelevant. The apartments and 39th St. frontage bldgs are, and this design fits in OK with the area, right?

Better than what's there, or what else we could expect to go in.  So it's a win from my corner.

In my opinion recommend some changes to the project to improve it but do not block it, at this point any extra density we get would help the area and support the business in the area.

I imagine they can't really increase the density of the project because it would require more parking onsite, and the parcel can't handle any more.