08-26-19 Zoning and Annexation - Laserfiche WebLink

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CITY OF SOUTH BEND OFFICE OF THE CLERK districts of how we took a very complicated complex issue on corner lots and I can tell you in six (6) years that I've read this twenty (20) times and I still can't figure it out half the time. It just simplifies it to fifteen (15) feet. Basically, it was a reduction and a set back when you're on a corner property. We often had to go to Carolyn Henry because she's been here the longest to help us interpret what it said. So, we looked at throughout the ordinance trying to simplify things. As a quick overview of the major items within the development district standards, for the most part you can see the vast majority of the standards are not changing in our one(1)to one(1)translation that we've talked about previously. The ones that you see here, the minimum lot width is the one that probably changes the most,and that has to do with ensuring that we're keeping the Urban character that we're looking at for the City of South Bend. A sixty(60) foot lot in an urban area is not very sustainable and isn't really something that we want to encourage long-term so we're looking at reducing those. It doesn't mean people have to build on those, but just giving them more options. When we look at set backs for example in the commercial districts our current set backs are very suburban. We have a thirty (30) foot front set back. We looked at reducing that to ten (10) that allows developers to build for example, parking behind the building. A thirty (30) foot front set back by the time you set your building back thirty(30) feet, the best use of the lot would be to just fill it with parking in front and we don't want to encourage that. So, reducing the front set back will allow for some better development options as we move forward. Again, the vast majority of our properties, the development standards really aren't changing. Mr. Michael Divita, Principle Planner for the City of South Bend Community Investment Department with offices on the 14th floor of the County-City building stated, Another piece that will be new in the zoning is putting in building pipes in frontages and this is a national best practice that really helps drive well designed vibrant marketable neighborhoods. It ensures that new construction has a certain minimal level of quality and also compatibility, especially scale wise with existing homes. We think these are standards that are easily achieved. You can study a little bit more in the information that we'll provide you, but for example there may be a building type such as a detached home and the standards are very straightforward. Very few standards there that can be easily achieved. Really matches well with what's getting built here today but ensures that level of quality stage. You might also have a commercial shop building type. Each building type would have a type of frontage that you can pick to go along with it. A frontage type is just really kind of the front of what the interface is between the suite or public realm in that building. So, for a detached home it might be having a front porch or a stoop. So, it could be easily met by doing a four by four(4x4)concrete pad in front. Then for a commercial type building there would be some other options. For example, the store front or the terrace examples. Ms. Smith then stated, Again, as we're going out we're going to be making all of this information available for press release. So, the public information went out on Thursday of last week. All of the information for the proposed ordinance is now available on our website. It is only in draft form as we're using it, we're continuing to meet with developers. We're finding things that we need to refine throughout there, and we encourage people to look through it and offer suggestions. We are starting to receive phone calls on that, so it's great to see that people are reading it. We have our public outreach meetings coming up starting on Wednesday of this week. This week we will be at the Charles Black Center and the River Park Branch Library, and then next week we'll be at the German and Tutt Library branches. Again, we're aiming towards that September 18th,2019 filing. The critical date that we're looking at is September 12th, 2019 for getting any and all comments back. That gives us essentially a week to make those final revisions and kind of get the ordinance EXCELLENCE I ACCOUNTABILITY INNOVATION INCLUSION EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 227 W.Jefferson Bvld South Bend,Indiana 46601 p 574.235.9221 f 574.235.9173 TTD574.235.5567 www.southbendin.gov 2