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HomeMy WebLinkAbout05-29-19 Zoning and Annexation SOUTH.8 ? W PEACE CC X 1865 OFFICE OF THE CITY CLERK KAREEMAH FOWLER, CITY CLERK ZONING &ANNEXATION MAY 29, 2019 5:00 P.M. Committee Members Present: Dr. Oliver Davis, John Voorde, Jo M. Broden Committee Members Absent: Gavin Ferlic Other Council Present: Karen White (late), Tim Scott (late) Other Council Absent: Regina Williams-Preston, Jake Teshka, Sharon L. McBride Others Present: Graham Sparks, Bob Palmer, David Moses Presenters: Tim Corcoran, Mike Divita, Angela Smith, Larry Magliozzi Agenda: Update: Zoning Ordinance Committee Chair Dr. Oliver Davis called to order the Zoning and Annexation Committee meeting at 5:03 p.m. He introduced members of the Committee and proceeded to give the floor to the presenters. Update: Zoning Ordinance Tim Corcoran, Director of Planning of the Department of Community Investment with offices located on the 14th floor of the County-City Building, stated, Thank you very much for doing this. We always appreciate the extra time to keep you guys updated about where things are. So,we will try to get through this(referencing a presentation which is available in the City Clerk's Office) for everybody's sake, but I did feel it was very important for us to keep everyone on track. While we do sometimes go over these things individually, it is also good to do it in a setting like this. This way people can get shorter bursts of information. We would like to keep doing that. So, anyways, what we want to talk about today is this next round of Zoning Ordinance fixes which includes what we are calling SF-Three (3). That is a residential district. We also have some planned reform to our Central Business District. Secondly,we will go over the schedule of both the Zoning Ordinance reformatting and the Plan Commission updates. We've got some questions in the past and hopefully you will get a little bit more information. That will keep us on track of what we're looking into. Also, we are going to speak about both the internal and external engagement on the Zoning reformatting. So, internal, that is right now. This is part of our engagement to our internal folks, but we also have a list of external people we want to talk to and we are getting on some of those meeting schedules for the Real Estate Associations and stuff like that. We also hope to preview a little bit of the new zoning format. INTEGRITY' SERVICE'ACCESSIBILITY JENNIFER M.COFFMAN BIANCA L.Tmnoo JOSEPH R.MOLNAR CHIEF DEPUTY/DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS DEPUTY/DIRECTOR OF POLICY ORDINANCE VIOLATION CLERK EXCELLENCE I ACCOUNTABILITY I INNOVATION I INCLUSION I EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 1227 W.Jefferson Blvd.I South Bend,Indiana 46601 I p 574.235.9221 I f 574.235.9173 I www.southbendin.gov ®CITY OF SOUTH BEND ! OFFICE OF THE CLERK Councilmember Karen White arrived at the meeting at 5:06 p.m. Mike Divita, Principle Planner for the Department of Community Investment with offices located on the 14th floor of the County-City Building, stated, Again, the next two (2) quick fixes include the introduction of the SF-Three(3)District and the reform of our CBD District. We will look first (1st) at the SF-Three(3) District. It's really a means to address the missing middle housing. I know we've talked about it in some of our most recent planning initiatives. Missing middle housing are some of those house-scale buildings that have multiple units and are in walkable neighborhoods. We are talking about small multi-unit buildings that fit very well within Single-Family neighborhoods. So, these are mixed in, commonly, in areas built particularly prior to 1940. You may have seen this diagram(referencing a slide in the presentation)before. It is kind of a spectrum of housing types from Single-Family detached homes on the left and getting more intense getting up to mid-rise and then tower. In our current Zoning Ordinance, SF-One(1) and SF-Two (2)zones are the Single-Family zones. They sync pretty well to the detached Single-Family homes. They kind of address the duplex. Duplexes are allowed but they require a special exception to be in those districts. Then, to the right of the line on this (referencing a slide in the presentation) are MF-One (1), Multi-Family District. That consists of townhomes and as you get into some of the even more intense types of housing. Our ordinance doesn't speak to anything really in between. We want to make it easier for duplexes, triplexes, quads or bungalow cottages. Councilmember Karen White asked, Will the setbacks be the same when you look at this type of development? Mr. Divita replied, They can, and I will cover that in our presentation. The idea is to blend well into the neighborhood. Let's get a look at what that might look like. Referencing slides in the presentation, Mr. Divita showed pictures of different houses. He stated, It could be like this,a side-by-side duplex. An up-and-down stacked duplex.A triplex unit. A side- by-side-by-side triplex unit. A stacked triplex unit. You'll see the little piece in the back and this is something that has a lot of names. In a technical term,our current ordinance calls it an accessory dwelling unit, or ADU. Some places call it an ancillary dwelling unit. In everyday terms, you'd see it called a granny flat, a mother-in-law suite, a backyard cottage. Depending on the form, it could be a carriage house or a garage apartment. Mr. Corcoran interjected, In Australia, they called them Fonzie Flats because that's where Fonzie lived. Councilmember White stated, There has been a lot of interest in these tiny home concepts. Would those pertain to this type of zoning? Mr. Divita replied, Not to this one(1) directly. Some, it would depend on the arrangement. This is also an example (referencing a slide in the presentation), not a perfect but a local example, of a cottage court. That is on the south east side. You've probably picked up on it, but all the pictures shown have been from out of South Bend. The fact you didn't know it existed suggests that it fits well in the neighborhood. You could have a tiny house court in this arrangement. EXCELLENCE ACCOUNTABILITY j INNOVATION INCLUSION EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 227 W.Jefferson Bvld South Bend,Indiana 46601 p 574 235 9221 f 574.235.9173 TTD 574.235.5567 www.southbendin.gov 2 CITY OF SOUTH BEND OFFICE OF THE CLERK Councilmember White asked, Would that require special zoning? I think there are a couple of developers talking about tiny houses. I know currently our zoning, what I was told, would not allow for that and we have to make some changes. Mr. Divita replied, You can have a tiny house, but you can only have one (1) tiny house per lot if it's zoned Single-Family. You could have a grouping of them but that would require Multi-Family District. I think some of the rub is when you want to start integrating them into a neighborhood, then you are introducing Multi-Family zoning in the middle of a neighborhood where you may not necessarily want it. I think that would be another rationale for the zone we are talking about. It is something sort of intermediate and is the next beyond Single-Family housing but is something that is highly compatible with it. He continued, So,why are these changes important?We talked a bit on the housing choice bringing these different kinds of styles that are otherwise illegal in the City. These types, they also tend to be more affordable and a little bit smaller in square footage. Also, you tend to share property and walls, so the housing cost is lower. These also provide an opportunity for wealth creation. You may have a home already on your lot and you may choose to build an accessory dwelling in the back. In neighborhoods with housing values going up, it's a way to preserve some affordable housing within that neighborhood and that neighborhood character. It allows neighborhoods to slowly evolve while we add in some of these different housing options and types. With that, it is also a way to add in some more population in a gentle way. That helps support neighborhood-scale business by having greater population density there. It finally helps support some of our neighborhood plans.The NNN planning efforts are looking at some of these housing types as well. Committeemember Jo M. Broden interjected, Couldn't sustainability be a point in there as well? In terms of smaller footprint, less exterior walls, infill? Mr. Divita replied, Yes, and they tend to be in very walkable environments as well. That even plays into the affordability piece as there may be less dependence on the automobile,and that cost. In summary, this district would allow for anywhere from having one (1) to four(4) housing units on a lot with an accessory dwelling unit, by right, on that lot. I will note that it doesn't mean we have to develop to that intensity. If you look at some of the older neighborhoods, especially that ring downtown, my houses are Single-Family but, here and there, there would be a duplex or a triplex. Neighborhoods work very well that way. I will note, too, the draft ordinance would have that if they are converting,they would still require a special exception as you would now.We don't want to give the incentive of taking a bunch of Single-Family homes and chop them up. It can be done well but, unfortunately oftentimes it is kind of sloppy. The intent here is to take some of our vacant land supply and do more purposeful duplexes and triplexes. Committee Chair Dr. Davis asked,You say more vacant land,especially targeting the places where the houses were knocked down and those kinds of things? Mr. Divita replied, Certainly, yes, as that is an infill housing strategy. He continued, In terms of the ordinance and what uses we allow other than those modest changes, we want to allow a little bit more housing onto a lot. Otherwise, it would be a direct copy of what uses are allowed in the SF-Two (2) District. The development standards in terms of setbacks, side yards, etcetera would be much in keeping with what we see in the urban neighborhoods already in EXCELLENCE ACCOUNTABILITY INNOVATION INCLUSION EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 227W Jefferson Bvld South Bend,Indiana 46601 p 574 235 9221 f 574.2359173 TTD 574.235.5567 www.southbendin.goy 3 •CITY OF SOUTH BEND I OFFICE OF THE CLERK the City. They kind of provide a transition between SF-Two (2) which are urban Single-Family neighborhoods and MF-One (1) which is kind of an urban Multi-Family, more of a townhouse, kind of development. I'll also note that this proposal year, we aren't making any math changes. So, we would not be zoning any land to this new district, but it would be made available as developers, projects or plans came forward. Councilmember Tim Scott arrived at the meeting at 5:17 p.m. Committeemember Broden asked, So, it's an option then on any parcel? And it would be a special exception request if there is an existing structure on it. Otherwise, by right, you would hit the one (1)to four(4) housing? Mr. Divita replied, That is correct. Committeemember Voorde stated, If you had a mini development, you could achieve all of that with a PUD, couldn't you? Angela Smith, Zoning Specialist for the Department of Community Investment with offices located on the 14th floor of the County-City Building, stated, No, the adoption of the PUD Ordinance you have now you would have to do this through variances. You can't do this through a PUD. When we made that revision a few years back, we got rid of that option because we saw people manipulating the PUD Ordinance that wasn't really what it was for. Committeemember Voorde then asked,Wouldn't Eddy Street Commons have its own set of rules? Mr. Corcoran replied, It is a PUD but today if Eddy Street Commons came to us, we wouldn't recommend going down that path because there is a zoning district in which it could have fallen into with some variances for height and maybe a couple of other things. Phase Two (2) is Mixed- Use.The other thing to note is that there are developers that have been talking to us about this type of housing for probably two(2)years now. They are getting closer to being able to actually deliver this. So, we are trying to get ahead of that, so we can have this in place for that in the next couple of months and possibly by the end of the year, someone comes to us and asks for this zone. Committeemember Voorde followed up, Would Pat Matthews' place on Rosemary and Ironwood fit into this? Mr. Corcoran replied, I would have recommended an SF-Three(3)for that project. I think it would have potentially elevated some of the neighborhood concerns about the MF-One (1) Zoning District. But,that still allowed for there to be a gradation of intensity of development. So,the units on Ironwood could have been more of that Multi-Family character, and internally could have been more of the townhouse, small house or whatever. Then on the Rosemary side it could have been a Single-Family house. I was trying to push him into doing something like that, but he couldn't really do that in an SF-Two (2) District but that is a blanket.This allows for that. As Mike pointed out, you can do a Single-Family house in an SF-Three (3) District. You can do all of those things and allow for that gradation of development. That site would be a perfect example of how to do it. Or, Frederickson Commons,they are doing it through variances. Again, a perfect place where this could have been implemented. EXCELLENCE ACCOUNTABILITY INNOVATION INCLUSION EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 227W.Jefferson Bvld South Bend.Indiana 46601 p 574.235.9221 f 574.235.9173 TTD 574.235.5567 www.southbendin.gov 4 410 CITY OF SOUTH BEND OFFICE OF THE CLERK Mr. Divita stated, And the River Walk development, you saw, they had a part zoned SF-One (1), some parts MF-One (1) and as plans changed they shifted where that was. You'll see coming to you soon some duplexes. It is the old TRANSPO site. If this district was in place, it would be appropriate for that and would give them the flexibility to see what the market is exactly. Committeemember Broden stated, I don't remember if your points included that but the ability to do that variation across each single lot, I think,is a huge plus. The market is already telling us that. Mr. Corcoran stated, I think as a City, one (1) of the things we need to try to do better at is infill development. We have a lot of land inside the City. We know growing the City is not necessarily a good option because we are adding liabilities with roads, pipes and all that sort of stuff. That costs money. Every twenty(20) years, we need to repave roads and I'm not saying we do but those are liabilities and costs. That's extending Fire Service or Police Services. So, infill development should be a priority for us and it actually builds a lot of wealth in the City.This type of development does that. Furthermore, some of my experience overseas was that these types of things sold faster than Single-Family because a lot of the housing and home dynamic. There is a market for this that people had no idea existed. The first (1st) people that lined up were like the single mother with an autistic child who was in his twenties and she wanted him to live a more independent lifestyle. It was kind of amazing to see the types of people that gravitate to this type of housing. Committee Chair Dr. Davis asked, Are other cities across Indiana doing this, too? Mr. Corcoran replied, Indianapolis has done some of this, but I don't know exactly how they delivered it. Mr. Divita clarified,There has been some,like the accessory dwelling units. I've seen some places that divide out the Single-Family as sharply as our existing ordinance does. Mr. Corcoran stated, There are communities, Minneapolis is one (1), where they are eliminating Single-Family zoning totally. Part of that is there is a developing housing affordability crisis in Minneapolis,much like you hear about in, say, San Francisco and other places like that. What was really interesting to me was it went beyond the housing affordability, it went back to the red lining practices where Single-Family zoning was used as a way to prevent people from moving into neighborhoods. By eliminating this,what it does allow for is that gradation of housing product that allows for more affordable housing types to exist,potentially,in any neighborhood in South Bend, depending on how we develop the plans and working with the neighborhoods. Committeemember Broden stated, So, your diversity in terms of the developer, in terms of the community outcome, right, this I think adds points I think are important to emphasize. When we talk about affordability, in terms of rent, I think the other thing that stands out to me are the basic development costs with hookups and all of that. Mr. Divita replied, The interior lots will be much less expensive. Councilmember Scott stated, Denver has done some of this too. You have a great mix because you could have a Single-Family home but have other things within it. It does help with diversity and, like you were saying, all the options on the table. EXCELLENCE I ACCOUNTABILITY INNOVATION I INCLUSION I EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 227W Jefferson Bvld South Bend,Indiana 46601 p 574.235.9221 f 574.235.9173 TTD 574.235.5567 www.southbendin.gov 5 CITY OF SOUTH BEND I OFFICE OF THE CLERK Mr. Corcoran stated, Right. Why sort of stop people from living the way they want to live? The other point about accessory dwelling units (AUDs), other places like Portland, Minneapolis, Atlanta and I think maybe Los Angeles, are allowing AUDs by right pretty much anywhere you can build a house. So, it's also something, we won't talk about today but will be talking about in the future. It is an idea we want to bring to you guys to talk about. It is not part of this conversation. Committeemember Broden stated, It makes sense, though. You want to roll this out and get hits on the infill, and then open up that opportunity. Mr. Corcoran replied, It is potentially all going to happen within a similar timeframe, starting at the new year when this new Zoning Ordinance takes effect. This will allow someone to do that right away. To the other point you were making, hopefully what it also does is broaden, sort of, the range of people who call themselves developers. The way I see it, anyone in this room could be a developer. In fact, I would like to encourage everyone in this room to be a small-scale developer. That is in some ways, and we'll get to it in a second, the genesis of where we started this conversation. We will discuss that later, not tonight. Committeemember Voorde stated, That sounds like a further complication for the Assessor. Councilmember White asked,Are you aware of the work being done by 466Works? How does all this fit in? I know they have plans to continue to build. I think they have a lot for nine (9) or ten (10)more houses. Mr. Corcoran replied, Yes. We ran a small-scale developer boot camp. The first (1st) one (1) was in 2017. We've updated that this year and we made sure the Patton's and others from 466Works were in attendance. What we were able to do, I think, was shift their thoughts on what they might want to deliver over time. Their first (1st) product will be Single-Family homes but they are now thinking more broadly. Especially when it comes to that wealth creation part, I think there are people really interested in how this type of housing product can help build generational wealth for people. Councilmember White followed up, Do you recall that study on housing that was commissioned by the Department of Community Investment? She came back and shared that. A lot of things I'm seeing here are what some of the recommendations were.Not necessarily looking at Single-Family but having different types of housing options. How does that fit into what you are recommending? Mr. Corcoran replied, That report helped define the market demand and potential for the range of housing types including the missing middle housing types. For instance, when we did the NNN plan, we utilized that market analysis to help us determine what we thought was a reasonable uptake in market in the NNN. So, we are in the process of getting all the graphics together to start to write it but there is all that process that went behind it. This is now that step to help us deliver that. So,we know what the potential is,but if somebody wanted to do it,it would be not necessarily difficult because we are responsive, but we don't necessarily have the place in order for them to do that. That is what this is going to help us to do. Councilmember Scott stated, One (1) thing I watch on YouTube a lot is living big in tiny houses. Have you seen that? It's pretty neat. Not only the architecture of the houses and all of that,but one (1) piece of property in one (1) the cities in New Zealand was like $1 million just on property. A EXCELLENCE ACCOUNTABILITY INNOVATION INCLUSION EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 227 W.Jefferson Bvld South Bend,Indiana 46601',p 574.235.9221 1574.235.9173 1TD 574.235.5567 vww.f.southbendin;gov 6 *CITY OF SOU'T'H BEND OFFICE OF THE CLERK lot of people are finding different ways of doing it. Part of their zoning,one(1)person parked their tiny house on a neighbor's driveway and that was allowed. I'm not saying we should do that here, but we need to put many different options on the table. Mike Keen is looking in different areas to find different options. Look at our City. It is cookie cutter. Single-Family house after Single- Family house. You go to one (1) neighborhood after the next and there aren't options for people. Mr. Corcoran stated, That affordability piece, it is sort of the opposite side of that same affordability coin.Yeah,Australia and New Zealand,the property values are extremely high as are San Francisco and Minneapolis for that matter. There is an affordability problem in South Bend, as well, it's just the different side of that coin. So, we are trying to answer that and that is to be more flexible in how we look at housing. Ms. Smith stated, One (1) of the other nice things about the SF-Three (3) district is I think it kind of eliminates some of that fear you get from the neighborhood. If you want to do a triplex in a neighborhood, right now they would have to rezone to MF-One (1). But, that could be anywhere from three (3) units to one hundred (100) units. There is no cap unless you put one (1) on it. This kind of gives people the built-in protection and they know it won't be more than four(4)units plus an ADU. So, they know it won't suddenly be a high-rise apartment. It responds both to the neighborhood character and also helps address the use fear that comes with what could be. Councilmember Scott asked, So, we've asked before, but how much of this takes away all the special exceptions that keep coming before us for zoning?That might be a hard number to quantify. Mr. Corcoran replied,There is only one(1)main special exception. What we don't want to happen is, for instance, we are doing a major rezoning that would cover existing homes. What that would mean is, you could take a Single-Family home into two (2), three (3) or four(4) pieces. What we are trying to say is we don't want conversions of homes. It is still possible, through the special exception process, but that has to come before you guys if we are going to allow it or not. So, it still gives us the control over existing homes. This is also pretty important for historic areas. We don't want people cutting up historic homes. Councilmember Scott stated, Yeah, I like that. Mr. Divita stated, Moving onto the next piece, it will be a bit quicker. I'll pass this around, it is a form with the CBD standards (which is available in the City Clerk's Office). I won't go through this line by line, but I wanted to summarize the rationale and big-picture things about what we are proposing here. We've done some of the fixes for some of the common things that people come in, ask us for, and always get approved or other pieces that, in retrospect, didn't really make sense. So,we are proposing some reforms to the CBD District and its standards. Overall,they are actually very similar to the MU District reforms the Council passed last year. The changes fall within one (1) of three (3) categories. One (1) is permitting more of the lot to be used. So, it's an efficiency question and anywhere you should be using the land most intensely is probably in the CBD District. There are pieces to clarify some existing ordinance provisions. The third (31-d) is adding some basic design principles. The first(1st) set deal with setbacks and buffer yards. Then there are clarification pieces on how plazas are used or not used and on outdoor operations, essentially sidewalk cafes.The backside information deals with reworking the building material requirements to make it a little bit more flexible but also asks for higher quality. EXCELLENCE ! ACCOUNTABILITY INNOVATION I INCLUSION EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 227W Jefferson Bvld South Bend.Indiana 46601 p 574.235.9221 f574.235.9173 TTD574.235.5567 www.southbendin.gov 7 CITY OF SOUTH BEND OFFICE OF THE CLERK Committeemember Voorde asked, What is EIFS? Mr. Divita replied, That stands for Exterior Insulated Finishing System. He continued, So between now and when this comes back to Council, we are happy to go into further detail if you want. I could answer questions now if you would like. Councilmember Scott asked, So, when are these proposed changes coming to us? Mr. Divita replied, They are going to the Area Plan Commission for their June meeting, they will come back to you in your second(2nd) meeting of June. Mr. Corcoran stated, We would need a sponsoring Council Member for both of these two (2). Committee Chair Dr. Davis stated, Councilmember Voorde will be one (1) and Councilmember Broden will be the other. Larry Magliozzi, Director of the Department of Infrastructure, Planning & Growth with offices located on the 11th floor of the County-City Building, stated, I would like to remind the Council that the Area Plan Commission recommends the whole document. If you change something at Council, it has to go back to the APC. Councilmember White stated, So,we should give our feedback prior to the Area Plan Commission meeting. Ms. Smith stated, In case you missed the introduction yesterday, I have joined the Department of Community Investment. My task, for the rest of the year, is to help with the transition for the adoption of the new Zoning Ordinance, as well as the formation of the South Bend Plan Commission Board of Zoning Appeals. So, what I want to touch on tonight is the timeline of what this will look like (referencing a slide in the presentation). The reformatting of the Zoning Ordinance, we are well underway. We've been working with a consultant and we hope to have a final working draft by early to mid-June. That will allow us to start reaching out to developers, getting interdepartmental reviews from Fire and Engineering, and start getting public engagement where we can take a document out to the public. From what I've heard, the 2005 adoption was a much larger overhaul of the Zoning Ordinance,there were a lot of Committee meetings,but I don't know how much outreach there was to take this out to the public. We want to make sure this isn't a surprise to anybody. We're not making major changes, but we are updating things and we want people to feel they have the opportunity to comment and be included. We have an engagement strategy I will talk a little bit about. That would allow us to get all the comments back to the consultant by the end of July to make any tweaks to the draft that we need to do so we can introduce it for the September Plan Commission meeting, hopefully, and get it in front of the Council in October. Part of why we are going on that timeframe is even though we anticipate it not going into effect until January Pt is we want to allow time for us to formulate the Plan Commission and do training.We want to train the Building Department on what the new standards are so,come January 1St, we are ready to go, and we don't have a whole lot of problems with that transition. So, we are trying to make sure we do everything we can to make sure the transition is as smooth as possible with all the departmental agencies. EXCELLENCE ACCOUNTABILITY INNOVATION INCLUSION EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 227W.Jefferson Bvld South Bend,Indiana 46601 p 574.235.9221 f574.235.9173 TTD 574.235.5567 twwv.southbendin.gov 8 )CITYOFSOUTHBEND iOFFICE OFTHE CLERK Committee Chair Dr. Davis interjected, You want that to come to the Council in October. Ms. Smith replied, Ideally, yes. Committee Chair Dr. Davis followed up, Is there any way it could come in September? Ms. Smith replied, We can try. If we get it to the Plan Commission in September, we would be at your second(2nd)meeting in September. Committee Chair Dr. Davis stated, That coincides with the budget issues. Councilmember White stated, We will hopefully be close to adopting the budget. Last year, if I remember correctly, we did it in September. I'm going to be recommending some changes, so I'll get that to the Council. Ms. Smith replied, We also had to leave some flexibility in there if this turned into multiple meetings in front of the Council. There are some advertising requirements we have to meet. After it's passed, we have to re-advertise the fines and fees section, per the ordinance, before we can take it back. So, there are some timing things we have to get right in there. In terms of the Plan Commission and the Board of Zoning Appeals, we are currently working with the IT Department to help develop our solutions in terms of how we will manage the databases and set up the website and the applications that interface with the public. We are already working on that. I've already started researching the various jurisdictions and their meeting times and dates. I have a complete calendar of every meeting for the City of Elkhart, the City of Mishawaka and the County to look at making sure we don't conflict with other agencies. We also want to pick a time and date that works well for the public and make sure they can attend. Through this all, we are making sure we get this right. This is our chance to form it and set it up in a way that works in the correct way for the City. Then the technical stuff, the bylaws and adoption ordinance, the resolution to form the Commission, and again, that is all on here (referencing a slide in the presentation). The hope is that in November and December we can start training the members, adopt all the right processes and procedures, and make sure they are ready come January 1st. She continued, In terms of public engagement, we looked at a three (3)-fold approach. First (1st) of all, we want to make sure we are continually communicating with you guys. I think ideally, we would love to come on a regular meeting schedule and be part of your meeting agenda from now and throughout the end of the year. If we don't need it, we'll cancel it, but we want to make sure we are able to come and at least give you quick updates. We also want to introduce some of these new concepts when we talk about things like the missing middle or ADUs, or if there is something new we want to introduce maybe in the signage criteria, or something in the commercial district, we can address those. Then once we start meeting with groups like the realtors and the home builders' associations,then we can bring feedback to you guys about anything we hear from them, questions, concerns and things we are changing. We will continue to keep you guys in the loop. As I mentioned, the public engagement with the development community, reaching out to the various neighborhood associations, we want to go there to show them a zoning map. It will show the translation. We are also talking about the idea of having quadrant meetings throughout the City where people can come and ask questions. That will help eliminate a lot of the concerns or questions before it gets to the full public process because once it passes the Plan Commission, changing it gets really complicated. So,we like to work out all of those things in as much advance EXCELLENCE ACCOUNTABILITY INNOVATION INCLUSION EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 227 W.Jefferson Bvld South Bend,Indiana 46601 p 574.235.92211f 574.235.9173 I I U 574.235.5567 www.southbendin.gov 9 CITY OF SOUTH BEND OFFICE OF THE CLERK as we can. One(1)of the keys to that is having some of our small-scale and regular developers test different sections of the ordinance. We want them to try it out and have them tell us where they are having trouble reading it. We know there may be text amendments six (6) months to a year from now, but we want to try and do as much as we can ahead of time to eliminate a lot of the process. Committeemember Broden asked, Can you include Council on that public engagement as you schedule those dates, so we can pop in? Ms. Smith replied, Yes. Some of the meetings will be during our regular meetings. We can certainly make you aware when we are meeting. As I get those shored up, I will follow up with you. Committeemember Broden stated, I think it's important to actually schedule those four (4) days with the quadrants. I think that is good. And then setting the meeting dates for the new Commission, I certainly think afternoon or evening meeting times would help save some of the drama before it gets to Council. Ms. Smith stated,The meeting time at 3:30 p.m. seems to work fairly well. So,we are still looking for that late afternoon timeframe. That is with the fl�euglt.that someone can take off work, not only the public, but our board members, they are not paid. If they have to take off work to attend these, scheduling it toward the end of the day allows for that flexibility. So, we are looking at the end of the day. In terms of the process, as we are going through and trying to get this right, it is every part of the process. So, we are looking at the subdivision process and asking, how we can streamline this and make it a little bit better? We are looking at the variance applications, special exceptions and even the zonings. Now that this is all going to be internal and be reviewed by less departments,we aren't worrying about how long it's going to take the Health Department to review something, so we can make this a little bit faster. We've already looked at your filing deadlines and they are essentially the first(1st)and third(3rd)Wednesdays every month. So,we want to make sure we meet before that, so we can get the information to you guys. We are really being conscious of that and make sure we are making this development process friendly and easy to use for the public. We don't want these small-scale projects to not develop just because they are afraid of or confused by the process. Mr. Corcoran stated, We also want to work with anybody who comes to us with a project upfront so that we can help vet them with the ordinance. That way when it does come to you, it has been worked out. Or, they've chosen to not listen and do their own thing. He continued, So, one (1) of our consultants took this picture (referencing a slide in the presentation). You might recognize a few of these people. Sometimes I think that there are moments in time that define where we are today. One(1)of those moments I feel like was this day of the picture. We sat down with a consultant to talk about the barriers to development in South Bend. We thought we knew them all, but they did find a few things that we didn't realize might stop people from doing something in this process. So, we sat down and drew homes on lots and we tested these ideas. How do we do this? What are the different housing types we are trying to look at? How do we want to think about the way we present these ideas? Then when we talk about the reformatting we are doing, we want to take lessons from exercises like this and incorporating it in the zoning ordinance. I really like this photo when she sent it back to me. It really struck me EXCELLENCE ACCOUNTABILITY I INNOVATION INCLUSION EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 227 W.Jefferson Bvld South Bend.Indiana 46601 p 574.235.9221 f 574.235.9173 TTD 574.235.5567 www.southbendin.gov 10 CITY OF SOUTH BEND I OFFICE OF THE CLERK as a defining moment. There are others as well. I remember sitting around this table and we were talking about zoning reform. He went on, So, the new zoning ordinance format, Mike will get into a bit more detail but there is a big picture philosophy we want to address in this format. We want to support urban outcomes and best practices as best as we can. Why? Urban outcomes deliver far higher,per square acre and per square foot, tax revenue to the City. It builds density and resiliency in the City. We want to ensure we keep doing that. Maybe we've been blessed by the fact we can't just annex huge areas of St.Joseph County. That has stopped us from making potentially bad urban decisions in the past. We have to refocus on this infill. That really should be critical through the coming years. We also want to regulate just the things that matter. This is about making it easy but also saying what our urban values are. They are important to us and so we want to regulate around those, but when it comes to things we shouldn't or don't want to regulate as much, we don't. One(1) of the defining moments for me,my very first(1St)meeting with Larry and Angela,our weekly meeting,there was a variance request for landscaping to an alleyway. I turned to them and asked why the hell would you put landscaping in an alleyway? It made no sense to me. From that moment on, we wanted to look at where those variance requests were coming from and get rid of dumb regulation. He continued, In terms of usability, what is really interesting, as we've gone through this process internally, national blogs and other media have been putting out content that seem identical to our meeting content. It is amazing. One (1) of the things that Strong Towns put out was this idea of usability. Your rules could be great but if you cannot understand them or use them, then they are no good. That goes to even the development plans we talked about last night. If you can't understand it, it's worthless. We wanted to make sure we had a lot more diagrams and tables, and less text. We want more intuitive naming and a lot less cross-referencing. We want to be able to give someone something and let them run with it and go with it. Councilmember Scott asked, Are you seeing other cities in our area do the same thing? Mr. Corcoran replied, We know other communities spend millions of dollars and years to do this, and have it fail. We don't have millions of dollars or time for this to fail. I'm not going to spend my life doing this and not have it work. So, we talked to a lot of consultants initially to see what they had done in other places. In the meantime, Mike did a lot of investigation of codes being implemented in other cities in the Untied States. Cincinnati was one(1), Buffalo, New York, was one(1). No Elkhart or Mishawaka. Councilmember Scott replied, That's fine. To me, it gives us a competitive edge because we understand what's going on with that. Ms. Smith stated,The Area Plan Commission has made an effort to do this with the towns. A town is much easier to do this with. Mr. Corcoran stated, Mike came into my office one (1) day and said, "Tim, we can do this." I looked at him and said, "Mike, do you understand what you're saying?"What you're going to see soon is, yeah, we can write this stuff, but I need like three (3) more Mike's to do it. We met a woman named Jennifer Settle. She used to work for one (1) of the best urban design firms in the country, Opticos. Her parents live in Edwardsburg. She has a 574 area code mobile phone number and she lives in Chicago. She's got two(2)kids. She wants to focus on her family but doesn't want EXCELLENCE ACCOUNTABILITY INNOVATION INCLUSION EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 227W.Jefferson Bvld South Bend,Indiana 46601 p 574.235.9221 f 574.235.9173 TTD 574.235.5567 www.southbendin.gov 11 CITY OF SOUTH BEND I OFFICE OF THE CLERK to get out of the thing she's passionate about. I had this light bulb moment to say,"Well,why don't we hire her to do the things we can't do, and we'll do the things we can do." We are able to accomplish taking the good elements of these different zoning ordinances around the country, borrowing the things we know we like, but then making sure it is very much about South Bend. So, if Mishawaka wanted our zoning ordinance, they can take it, but it wouldn't exactly help. Mr. Divita stated, This should look familiar (referencing a slide in the presentation). This is what our existing ordinance looks like. This is the proposed change. Each district would have an intent image. There is a use table, so it is all clear to even find at a glance. Then we have some of the cross references right now. Each district will end up being eight(8)to ten(10)pages and will give you almost everything you need to know to develop. Mr. Corcoran stated, I would like to ask that from now on, we are on a sort of standing basis on the Z&A Committee so that if we need to come to you and talk to you about the things we discussed today, we can just come here and brief you quickly. If we don't need it, we can cancel it. We just want to make sure we keep coming to you to inform you of the progress. If you are open to that idea, we would appreciate that. Committee Chair Dr. Davis stated, I'm at peace. I'm good. With no furt• - siness, Committee Chair Dr. Davis adjourned the Zoning and Annexation Committee meetin;, at 6:04 p.m. Re p:�" itte. D .i i ►.avis, Committee Chair • EXCELLENCE ACCOUNTABILITY INNOVATION INCLUSION EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 227W.Jefferson Bvld South Bend,Indiana 46601 p 574.235.9221 f 574.235.9173 I 10574.235.5567 www.southbendin.gov 12