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HomeMy WebLinkAboutA019 - Council Action Form dated July 13, 1999 ITEM # 3Sa- 0. C �� DATE 07/13/99 COUNCIL ACTION FORM SUBJECT: PUBLIC HEARING AND MOTION TO APPROVE THE PROPOSED ZONING ORDINANCE OF THE CITY OF AMES. ACTION FORM SUMMARY: The proposed Zoning Ordinance that has been created as part of the Land Use Policy Plan update is now ready for approval by the City Council. This ordinance has been reviewed by the Planning and Zoning Commission and the City Council to an extensive degree. Staff believes it is now time to take action to approve this proposed ordinance. Staff recommends that the City Council approve the proposed zoning ordinance. BACKGROUND: The proposed zoning ordinance that has been prepared as part of the update to the Land Use Policy Plan is now ready to be approved by the City Council. This ordinance has been reviewed extensively by the Planning and Zoning Commission and City Council. This review has brought about a number of changes that effectively address the development issues that are experienced in the City of Ames, and is designed to implement the adopted Land Use Policy Plan. A selected listing of these changes include: • A vested rights provisions that allows projects that have been permitted under prior zoning requirements to be completed under those prior requirements (Page 2); • A definition of family that allows larger numbers of non-related persons to reside in apartment dwellings, while limiting the number of unrelated persons that may reside in other types of dwellings (Pages 5 and 6); • More forgiving non-conforming provisions that allow for an expansion of non-conforming uses with the permission of the Zoning Board of Adjustment, and non-conforming provisions that are easier to administer with respect to damage determination (Pages 17, 18, 19 and 20); • Landscape standards for apartment dwellings (Pages 25 and 26); • Inclusion of the outdoor lighting provisions (Pages 38 , 39 and 40); • Removal of the "Maximum Building Coverage" standard for apartment dwellings in all multiple family zones, except the Urban Core Medium Density Residential zone (Pages 58, 59, 62 and 63), • Change to the maximum building areas in the Community Commercial Node zone (Page 69); • Inclusion of the Campustown area in the Downtown/Campustown Service Center zone (Pages 70 and 71); • Providing for an exception to the minimum height requirement in the Campustown/Downtown Service Center zone (Page 71); • Removal of the High Impact/Low Impact provisions in the General Industrial zone (Pages 75 and 76), • Increase in the height allowance in the Hospital/Medical zone (Page 80); • Inclusion of the Village Residential zone as a "Floating" zone (Pages 87 through 99); and • Inclusion of a minimum density standard in the Suburban Residential Floating zone with clarification as to the method of calculating net density (Page 103). From the time that the review of the proposed ordinance began with the Planning and Zoning Commission in March of 1998, until the City Council completed its review in January of 1999, there were many more changes made to the proposed ordinance than those listed in this Action Form. The changes that have been listed represent staff's selection of changes that are most notable. Most recently, the Planning and Zoning Commission reviewed the zoning ordinance to fulfill the requirement as provided for in Section 414.6 of the Code of Iowa. As part of this review, the Commission recommended numerous changes to the zoning regulations as they relate to manufactured housing. Previously, the zoning ordinance had been proposed where all references to this type of housing referred to manufactured housing. The result of this created a number of instances where the ordinance was in conflict with the Code of Iowa. These changes need to be made to maintain consistency of the City of Ames' zoning ordinance with the State law. As recent as June of 1999, changes have been made to the proposed zoning ordinance that corrected this problem. These changes were made to the following articles: Article 2 Changes: A definition for "Mobile Home" has been added. A mobile home is a place of habitation that can be conveyed over a highway that has been constructed before June 15, 1976, and is not built to a mandatory building code and has no federal seal. 2 Article 3 Changes: A change in terminology of the zoning district is proposed. For years zoning ordinances have referred to the zoning district in which mobile homes and manufactured homes can locate in a planned park setting as the Mobile Home zone. The existing zoning ordinance of the City refers to this zone as the "R-5" (Mobile Home) District. What is proposed in the new zoning ordinance, as a result of this review, is to refer to this zoning district using the same terminology concept as all other residential zones by referencing a density characteristic. Therefore, the proposed name of this district would be: "RLP" - Residential Low Density Park zone. Article 4 Changes: The table that contains the minimum off-street parking requirements has been changed to reference the parking requirement for manufactured housing outside of the RLP zone as being the same as other single and two family housing. The table also contains parking standards for manufactured homes and mobile homes that locate in the RLP zone. These standards are different than the parking standards for dwellings in other residential zoning districts. Also in Article 4, there has been a provision inserted that was previously in Article 13 that specifies size and appearance standards for all non-attached dwellings. This will ensure that manufactured homes are compatible with conventional site built housing. Article 7 Changes: The previous reference to this zoning district as the "MH" - Manufactured Home zone is now changed to "RLP" - Residential Low Density Park zone throughout the entire district regulation. All of the other substantive requirements have remained unchanged, except the street design standards table has been added to the district regulation. Article 13 Changes: The provision that specifies what the size and appearance standards are for all non-attached dwellings has been removed from this article and moved to Article 4. The requirement for compliance with federal, state, and local codes, as they relate to manufactured housing, has been eliminated. This requirement gave the perception that manufactured housing was to be regulated differently than other housing, which is not the case. Additionally, manufactured housing must meet these requirements anyway, so the reference was superfluous. STAFF COMMENTS: An extensive amount of time has been spent by our consultant, Robinson and Cole, City staff, the Planning and Zoning Commission, and the City Council on the preparation of this ordinance. 3 The creation of this proposed ordinance has its inception in the update to the Land Use Policy Plan that began in October of 1993. The actual detailed work to re-write the ordinance began with the day long workshop that was held on Saturday January 18, 1997 where the City Council, the Planning and Zoning Commission, and Dwight Merriam reviewed a long series of regulatory issues that needed to be addressed in the regulations. At long last the zoning ordinance is now in a form where it reflects the outcome of all this work and review. The Planning and Zoning Commission reviewed the proposed zoning ordinance at their meeting of May 19, 1999 and recommended that the City Council adopt this ordinance with the changes that have been made to the manufactured housing regulations that have been previously discussed. Staff also recommends that the City Council adopt the proposed zoning ordinance. ALTERNATIVES: 1. The City Council can adopt the proposed zoning ordinance as written. 2. The City Council can decide not to adopt the zoning ordinance as written. 3. The City Council can table action on this request. MANAGER'S RECOMMENDED ACTION: It is the recommendation of the City Manager that the City Council adopt Alternative #1. This will adopt the proposed zoning ordinance as written on first reading. The City Council should understand that the proposed zoning ordinance will not become effective as the official zoning ordinance of the City of Ames until the City Council takes action to approve the zoning map. Staff is prepared to begin the work necessary to adopt the zoning ordinance map. It is estimated that much of the remaining portion of the year of 1999 will be spent reviewing and approving the zoning ordinance map. COUNCIL ACTION: Attachment 4