Taller buildings, no parking requirements - see what's in Columbus' zoning proposal
Columbus Mayor Andrew J. Ginther literally handed off his new zoning plan to city Council President Shannon Hardin at a Thursday morning media briefing, predicting it would create 88,000 new housing units on the less than 4% of city parcels involved — about 15 times the amount of new units absent the change.
The new plan for roughly 12,300 city parcels along major transportation corridors eliminates the requirement to provide parking spaces, even for commercial projects, and replaces a general 35-foot height limit with buildings up to 16 stories in core urban areas.
Saying he was done with reports and studies, Ginther proclaimed "this is a decade of action," adding that "NIMBYs," or those who demand "not in my backyard," need to challenge themselves to "become that region of YIMBYs," or those who say "yes in my backyard."
"We have to make tough decisions in the next 10 years," the mayor said.
For Columbus residents now learning many details of the massive new plan — a report detailing them released Thursday was 280 pages — the real decisions start Monday. That's when the actual ordinance officially arrives on the council's agenda, kicking off a 60-day public comment period expected to be followed by a vote of the nine-member body by mid-summer.
"This is the time that we need our residents to come, learn, give us their feedback, so that we together can build the city of the future," Hardin told The Dispatch after the briefing. "...We know that this is a big deal. We also know that a person, a homeowner, that their four-square that makes up their parcel, to a lot of folks that's their wealth.
"So we understand that there's a lot of ability for fear to be in this conversation. So we don't need fear-mongering, we need folks to come, learn about it and give us their feedback," he said, so that growth that is sure to be coming can work.
The changes are expected to dramatically reduce the need for developers to go before "area commissions" to negotiate projects in return for variances and zoning changes, and hopefully speed the development of in-demand housing.
The affected parcels are now governed by some 40 various zoning distinctions, each with different requirements. Under the proposal, there will be just six zoning categories, allowing a much broader range of uses in each.
"Every one of these 12,000 parcels will have a new designation," said City Council President Pro Tem Rob Dorans, during an embargoed meeting for The Dispatch at City Hall to go over the plan on Wednesday. About 4% of the city's more than 300,000 parcels are initially affected.
The need for more housing is at the center for the city's look at changing its decades-old zoning rules. The region needs to add 200,000 housing units by 2030, according to the Columbus Housing Strategy, and the proposed zoning would allow 88,000 units to be developed along the city's corridors, according to an analysis by Cascadia Partners, a firm hired by the city.
Flexibility for builders is designed into the new proposed code, replacing what is now "very inflexible," Dorans said, and was tied to the needs of past generations, mostly centered around the automobile.
Since the new zoning code would automatically allow more types of projects in its zones, it would reduce the number of "variances," or sanctioned departures from the zoning requirements commonly granted by City Council on a per-project basis. This would mean there will be less for area commissions to consider, a process that chews up developers' time and money, Dorans said.
The proposal represents Ginther's vision for the new code, but the final say will be with City Council, which may choose to make changes depending on public feedback, Dorans said.
Any existing structures will be grandfathered into the new zoning requirements, Dorans said, meaning they won't affect any property owners initially - unless they try to sell or build something new on it, triggering the new requirements. Dorans said a future sale of a grandfathered parcel shouldn't trigger the need to tear any structures down due to being out of zoning compliance, because the new code is generally more permissive.
By eliminating requirements, the city hopes to encourage the construction of new housing in Columbus and stabilize the price to buy or rent housing in the region, Dorans said.
While the 12,000-plus parcels are mostly zoned commercial currently, there are currently about 980 single-family houses on them, of which about 500 are not zoned for single-family, the city says. On land that is currently zoned commercial, the public can expect to see more residential development under the new code, Dorans said.
While corridors like West Broad Street through Franklinton and the Hilltop are mostly commercially zoned, "we could go taller there, and put more people along that corridor, especially if they don't need a car because they will have high-capacity transit that will move them around the city," Hardin said.
Those transit projects are already moving forward, Hardin said, noting the Central Ohio Transit Authority's recent $42 million federal grant to help fund a 9-mile bus rapid transit system on the West Broad Street Corridor, an initiative called LinkUS.
The proposed rules also eliminate the requirements for developers to provide parking. Dorans said Wednesday the elimination of parking requirements will free up land and money to build places for people to live. "Just giving (developers) more height won't do it," he said. But officials don't believe developers will abandon all parking accommodations. Rather, the market, not the city code, will dictate how much is wanted and provided, Dorans said.
The hope is that those residents will rely more on walking and on public transportation, which can be boosted as the corridors become more-densely populated due to the new zoning code, sustaining increased bus service.
Currently, residential structures with four or more units require 1.5 parking spaces per unit, while commercial structures like those for retail and eating establishments require spaces based on their square footage. Dorans said if a neighborhood develops a parking problem in the future related to the new code, such as because of a concentration of new development lacking parking, the City Council would be free to make changes and add new requirements at that point.
On building heights, the proposal would allow heights ranging from 4 stories to 12 stories, depending on the zone. Additional floors could be added in high-density areas if projects met city mandated affordability requirements for the housing being constructed.
The proposal does not affect most residents on neighborhood streets directly, but a future phase 2 would likely look at zoning changes for those areas.
Dorans stressed that the council wants input from the community on the proposals, which can be found online at www.columbus.gov/zoningupdate. Residents can also email [email protected] or call 614-645-5343 for more information.
@ReporterBush
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Columbus zoning plan allows taller buildings with no parking
