City of Columbia, Missouri

Meeting Minutes

Planning and Zoning Commission

CONFERENCE RM

1A/1B

Thursday, June 20, 2024

5:30 PM

WORK SESSION

CITY HALL

701 E BROADWAY

I. CALL TO ORDER

7 -

Present:

Sara Loe, Anthony Stanton, Valerie Carroll, Peggy Placier, Shannon Wilson, Matt

Ford and Thomas Williams

2 - Sharon Geuea Jones and Carl Baysinger

Excused:

II. INTRODUCTIONS

III. APPROVAL OF AGENDA

Meeting agenda adopted unanimously

Adopt agenda as presented

IV. APPROVAL OF MINUTES

June 6, 2024 Work Session

The June 6, 2024 work session minutes were approved, as amended. Commissioner

Williams noted that text on the bottom of page 1 where there was discussion of the

reduced paving in the required front yard for lots less than 5000 sq. ft. needed to be

changed to include the 30% option and indicate that paving limitations defaulted to

which every was the greater of 200 sq. ft. or 30% of the required front yard.

Adopt minutes as presented

V. NEW BUSINESS

A. Zoning District Acreage Patterns

Mr. Zenner provided handouts to the Commissioners relating to a prior request for

the memo that Mr. Teddy had prepared for the Council’s consideration regarding

“Inclusionary Zoning”. He noted that the Council did not provide direction to the

staff to proceed with additional research relating to the matter. Mr. Zenner further

noted that based on the comments made at the prior Commission meeting unlike

what was present in the New Jersey, the city’s zoning code was fairly inclusive in its

housing options within its current zoning classifications.

The current small lot project was undertaken to create “options” for attainable

housing construction and that the issues associated with increasing the

homeownership rates of historically disadvantaged members of the community

involved other entities such as financial institutions and developers willing to

engage. Mr. Zenner noted that zoning provisions are not intended to correct

lending practices or the willingness of a developer to build less expensive housing.

The purpose for zoning provisions is to create ways in which costs can be reduced

with the understanding that there is not a guarantee that attainable housing will be

constructed for everyone.

There was significant discussion with respect to this topic; however, there was no

direct recommendation from the Commission as to what should be done with the

contents of the memo. Several Commissioners express frustration that not enough

was being done to address homeownership rates and if not now when would such

action be taken.

Following this discussion, the principal topic of the agenda item was taken up. Mr.

Zenner provided an overview of the data. He noted that the data was scattered

given the department does not have an established policy by which to pull zoning

district acreages year to year. He noted that given the interest it would be

appropriate to establish January 2nd moving forward as the annual date for which

future data collections would occur. Mr. Zenner also noted that as has been

discussed previously, the R-1 zoning district is the most common (approx. 80%) of

the residentially zoned land mass within the city. He noted that this is important if

the small lot text change were implemented since these locations would be

potentially most impacted by the use of small lots (3000 - 4999 sq. ft.) and medium

lots (5000-6999sq. ft.).

There was Commission discussion about the data table provided. Commissioners

noted that the imbalanced of date ranges for the data were not well suited for

analysis. However, Commissioner as noted that they could see that growth

overtime was generally with the R-1 district. Commissioners asked if it was

possible to determine what the lot sizes were within the properties that rezoned to

residential, specifically the R-1 given it was the largest zoned acreage.

Mr. Zenner noted that this data was not available and would potentially require

looking at the platting actions. He noted it may be possible to extract average lot

sizes from parcel data that the city obtains from the Boone County Assessor’s

records. It was noted that having this information would potentially assist in

understanding where not only the small lot integration project would have its

greatest opportunity but it may also identify were other lot area changes (i.e.

maximums) should be considered to promote more attainable construction and

better usage of vacant land.

There was additional discussion that work that Mr. Kunz had prepared when looking

at lot sizes within specific regions of the community may also provide guidance for

addressing the Commission inquiry. Mr. Zenner noted that he would have to work

with Mr. Kunz on this task as well as the department’s GIS tech. As information

became available it would be provided to the Commission.

VI. OLD BUSINESS

A. Small Lots - Proposed use-specific standards/UDC amendments

Mr. Zenner introduced the agenda topic. He noted that the clarity sought was

necessary given prior Commission discussion with respect to creating regulatory

requirements that would discourage use of the new small lots versus promoting

their use. Mr. Zenner noted that as the current code is structured, zoning

incompatibility is addressed through several different factors principally

buffering/screening and neighborhood protections. The clarity desired is to

understanding the Commission’s intent of creating “cohesion” between and within

small lot developments. Mr. Zenner noted what he was looking for was guidance

on if the Commission wanted staff to prepare standards that may “isolated” small

lot development from adjoining residential uses thereby increase development

costs.

There was Commission discussion on this topic. Commissioners preferred to have

standards that would draw upon the current regulatory provisions within the UDC -

most specifically the neighborhood protection standards. Mr. Zenner explained

that the neighborhood protection standards were not presently applicable to single

or two-family development and to provide similar protections to adjoining single

and two-family construction would require a minor adjustment to those provisions.

Mr. Zenner further noted that discussion about creating “diversity” is related and

that the architectural provisions offered would establish minimum design guidance

associated with the development of small lots. He further noted, that the

additional provisions relating to “variety” in the housing styles and topologies were

being developed and would address lot size variations as well as potential include

percentage-based housing topologies for newly created small lot development.

Commissioners noted their support for staff pursuing development of “cohesion”

standards using a modified version of the neighborhood protection standards.

There was concern that applying additional standards to this style of development

would impact its use and may ultimately increase development costs. Mr. Zenner

noted that given the Commission would not be discussion this topic of “small lots”

on its July 18 work session agenda it was hopeful that staff could make progress on

the development of the remaining use-specific standards. Mr. Zenner thanked the

Commission for its input.

VII. NEXT MEETING DATE - July 18, 2024 @ 5:30 pm (tentative)

VIII. ADJOURNMENT

Meeting adjourned at 6:55 pm.

Moved to adjourn