The overarching, general issue is the need to find ways to support the goal with positive solutions that make it easier for owners, designers, and builders to design and build projects that fit the goal, without creating new obstacles for the majority of projects that fit well within the neighborhood character and context.

The search for such solutions is challenging because the goal typically involves limits, parameters, or regulations which are typically perceived by some as obstacles to design and construction projects.

Part of the context that creates specific issues is the current zoning, with its development standards, in the Land Use Code. For example:

• Land Use Code standards implement adopted neighborhood conservation and compatibility policies to only a rudimentary degree.
• Some citizens have concerns that current regulations allow infill and redevelopment projects to introduce inappropriate, incompatible change that negatively affects existing residents and the unique character and context of different parts of the neighborhoods.
• These citizen concerns are more numerous and detailed than the topics currently addressed in Land Use Code requirements. Examples of these concerns are: size of new construction, placement of building mass on the lot, shading, loss of privacy, diminished affordability, lost role of existing small houses in the social fabric, disruption of established patterns of houses, windows, and yards, and loss of historic character, all of which can significantly change the “feel” of certain neighborhood areas. These concerns are interrelated as aspects of the overall design of infill and redevelopment.

Another part of the context that creates specific issues is the potential for unintended consequences of any new zoning regulations or other limits, on construction activity. For example:

• Some citizens have concerns that increasing requirements or limits for infill and redevelopment projects could hinder reinvestment in lots that have outdated houses, resulting in loss of revitalization that comes with reinvestment in renovation and larger new construction.
• These citizen concerns reflect a basic viewpoint that eclectic variety and change over time are primary defining characteristics of the neighborhoods; that the degree of change currently allowed is acceptable; and that this change includes benefits that offset the negative impacts of change.
• These concerns also reflect a viewpoint that individual housing consumers, builders, and designers should determine the size and design of renovations, additions, and new houses, to best meet consumers’ needs and desires, with minimal or no additional public interference.

Our goal is to retain and enhance the unique character and context of the neighborhoods as they continue to change with renovations, additions, and new housing construction, with a well supported and effective public process resulting in appropriate and mutually agreeable solutions. Our objectives are:

• Define and understand a complete range of characteristics of the neighborhoods, as a basis for solutions to achieve the goal. Examples of characteristics include both physical facts and measurements, and dynamic aspects, such as the history and role of change, likely future changes, value and importance to the city, cycles and transitions in the role of the neighborhoods as part of the city’s housing stock, market cycles and factors, and attitudes.
• Use data to define the characteristics of the neighborhoods.
• Create a shared vocabulary among various stakeholders, using both words and images to articulate the characteristics, and to articulate appropriate types of change, and appropriate limits on change, such as use of a visual preference survey approach.
• Conduct a community involvement process for residents and other stakeholders to evaluate which characteristics warrant new solutions to help retain and enhance them. Conduct the process to include statistically valid or data-driven findings.
• Continue the community involvement process to derive solutions from the desires of residents, the Planning and Zoning Board, and the Landmark Preservation Commission, resulting in buy-in and informed consent. This community based support will ultimately benefit consideration
• Include necessary funding or staffing resources in any solutions.
• Include testing and monitoring of any actions to evaluate objective results for effectiveness and consequences.

The direction of Council was for Councilmembers Ben Manvel and Wade Troxell to meet with staff to work out an agreed-on problem statement, goals, objectives, and public process.

In January 2010, at the direction of City Council, staff initiated a study to examine whether changes to existing regulations were warranted to address the compatibility of new houses and additions in the eastside and westside neighborhoods (adjacent to Downtown). Some residents were concerned that a portion of the new houses and additions being built were not compatible with existing neighborhood character, particularly in the case of expanded houses that were much larger than existing houses in the vicinity. Potential implementation options were developed and presented to City Council as follows:

1. No change to current regulations.
2. Design Assistance Program.
3. Voluntary Design review.
4. House size standards.
5. Design standards.

At the November 23 City Council work session, Council directed staff to bring forward options 2, 3, and 4, which were presented and discussed by Council at their regular meetings on January 4 and February 1, 2011.

On February 1, 2011, City Council approved on 2nd Reading, two Ordinances related to the East and West Side Neighborhoods Design Standards Study. Ordinance No. 002, 2011, amended the Municipal Code to add a function allowing a committee of the Landmark Preservation Commission (LPC) to offer voluntary design consultation for interested property owners, and increase the membership of the LPC from seven to nine members.

Ordinance No. 003, 2011 amended the Land Use Code by lowering the current limits for building floor area in the Neighborhood Conservation Low Density (NCL) and Neighborhood Conservation Medium Density (NCM) zoning districts, by applying a Floor Area Ratio (FAR) formula based on the size of a lot to determine total allowed floor area; the first 3,000 square feet of a lot would be allowed a .45 FAR, and then the remaining square feet would be allowed a .25 FAR. Ordinance No. 003 also included a requirement that any variance request to the floor area limits receive a recommendation from a committee of the LPC to the Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA) for their consideration in deciding the variance request. Finally, the Ordinance required the City to monitor the implementation of the Ordinance and report back to the City Council within two years.

On April 19, 2011, the City Council was presented with a referendum petition, seeking to repeal Ordinance No. 003. At that meeting, City Council voted to repeal the Ordinance, and directed staff to schedule a work session to discuss a new work plan/approach.

The City Council is scheduled to discuss a new work plan/approach at their May 24, 2011 work session. Work sessions are held in the Council Information Center at City Hall West, 300 Laporte Avenue, starting at 6 PM, and are available for viewing on City Cable Channel 14.