Changes target a zoning loophole

Three years ago, neighbors in Greenacres rallied for eight months to at least thin out the new housing transforming their semirural homes. They solicited signatures from nearly 300 landowners, raised close to $2,000 and convinced the city’s leaders to place lower-density zoning in the area.

It didn’t matter.

The legal distinction between the zone allowing about four houses per acre and the zone allowing six was so vague that the city’s hearing examiner had no choice but to allow a zoning change to anyone who wanted more houses, as long as it didn’t require a change to the city’s comprehensive plan.

“We thought we really did something, we were all excited,” said neighborhood organizer Mary Pollard. But most of the new subdivisions in Greenacres were still built at six houses per acre anyway.

“The way things were, you just ask for a rezone and you get it,” she said.

At its meeting Thursday, the Planning Commission approved a chapter in the city’s new development code containing four sentences that could close the rezoning loophole that’s angered neighbors surrounding developments all over the city.

The provision would allow a change to denser zoning in residential areas only if the property at issue were within one-fourth mile of a transit route or a community commercial area.

The land would have to be connected to existing sewer lines and could only be rezoned if property next to it held the same zoning classification as the one being requested.

Reached Friday, Pollard was still skeptical about the effectiveness of the proposed rules. She said she preferred that the city look more closely at the characteristics of individual neighborhoods that should be preserved.

Planning commissioners, though, said Thursday the addition would allow for more consideration of the character of existing neighborhoods by giving the hearing examiner better guidelines on which to base decisions.

“I think this gives him something on a rezone” to consider when requests for higher density come up, said commissioner Fred Beaulac.

Four of the five commissioners present voted for the measure. Commissioner David Crosby voted no after arguing for broader language to accommodate subdivisions in unsewered areas that have their own sewage collection systems.

The language is part of the zoning chapter of the city’s new uniform development code. That chapter was approved in its entirety by the commission Thursday and forwarded to the City Council, which has the final say on the new regulations.