New management, a pandemic, and five years later, zoning to finally get an update
Now that City Council has agreed to commit $75,000 for a zoning code update — through a vote taken during this week's business meeting — the city will be able to get up to speed with that part of its comprehensive plan.
The zoning code update was to happen about five years ago, but a change in management and the bane of everyone’s existence — COVID — came along to put a halt to those plans, City Manager Rachael Tabelski said during an overview of the need for funding.
Photo by Joanne Beck
“Many of you remember when the city undertook the planning effort in about 2016-17 that culminated in the adoption of the Comprehensive Plan update. Among several recommendations in the plan, one of the significant recommendations was that we update our zoning code … we need to have flexible zoning if we are going to be able to have more housing in different areas than we've had in the past, specifically, if it's been an industrial or commercial area that might lend itself to housing,” she said. “So, as the manager at the time left, and we went through reorganization here at the city, I think it's time that we get back to this process and update, and this is just the zoning code update.”
She had provided that explanation during a previous council meeting, requesting that the $75,000 come from an unassigned fund balance and be put into a fund specifically for the purpose of updating the zoning code.
“So we could move forward with the process. It would probably be a nine to 12 or 13-month process where we would have a formal committee that gets together. Typically, we'd like members of the existing Planning Committee and the Zoning Board of Appeals and citizens to be part of that committee,” she said. “We will do public outreach through the process. So it is a planning process. But in the end, you'd have an approval and a public hearing to change the zoning codes. So again, it's a long process, but long overdue, and we have had it as one of our goals from the Comprehensive Plan and the city's strategic plan for several years.”
A council member asked how she came up with the figure of $75,000, and she has been around other comprehensive studies that have cost at least that or double, she said, for the total plan and rezoning, “so I was thinking we plan to put it out for RFP, with our prequalified engineers, or open it up.”
“I haven’t made that decision yet, but I was hoping this would be enough to bring in the consultant to guide us through the process,” she said. “Because we definitely do need an expert sitting with us through the process, but with that, it would be staff members and, like I said, committee members and citizens that participate.”
Council voted on Monday to transfer the $75,000 from the general fund unassigned fund balance into a committed fund balance for the project of zoning code update and future land use planning.
This project will help to achieve the goals of the 2017 comprehensive plan update, in which the city outlined a future-use land map where new zoning regulations will dictate the form and use of properties within the city.
