Item 1: Ordinance on Downtown and Mixed Use Development

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ATTACHMENT A Summary of Downtown/Mixed Use Development Amendments July 1, 2013 Code Topic Description Section(s) 1. Housing in The goal of these amendments is to increase housing opportunities in commercial areas. EC 9.2160, Commercial Table 9.2160 This amendment would allow for multi-housing on the ground floor in a building in the C-2 Community Commercial EC 9.2161 zone citywide, where currently it is only allowed if a certain percentage of the ground floor of the building is in commercial or non-residential use. Council recently removed this requirement for downtown. The amendment would also allow for one or two apartment units (aka non “multi-family”) in the C-3 Major Commercial zone in a building with commercial use on the ground floor, but not allow traditional detached single-family dwelling or duplexes. 2. Surface Parking The goal of this amendment is to provide flexibility for redevelopment sites within downtown. EC 9.2161 Limitation Currently, in the C-3 zone, the maximum number of surface parking spaces is limited to 20 when the parking is not associated with a use on the site. All parking in excess of 20 must be within a parking structure, and new stand-alone surface parking lots are prohibited. This amendment would allow up to 20 additional surface parking spaces for sites where all vehicle access is via an alley, and would remove prohibition on stand-alone surface parking lots. 3. Large The goal of this amendment is to ensure that development standards applicable to downtown developments are EC 9.2171 Commercial appropriate for a high quality urban setting. EC 9.2173 Facilities Currently, new buildings with 25,000 square feet or more of floor area in commercial zones are required to meet the Standards Large Commercial Facilities Standards, which for the most part, require designs intended for a suburban, car oriented context. This amendment would exempt downtown developments from certain large commercial facilities standards, including on-site pedestrian circulation, that are redundant in an urban setting with ample sidewalks, but would retain requirements for providing building articulation, ground floor windows and other relevant standards. 4. Commercial The goal of this amendment is to make the commercial landscaping standards align with desired urban development EC 9.2171 Landscaping and a pedestrian-oriented streetscape design. Standards This amendment would reduce the minimum landscape area requirement for C-2 zoned properties in downtown (C-3 zoned properties are exempt from providing landscaping), and remove the required width for front yard landscape beds.