Zoning in Greater Lansing
Thought a stand-alone thread may be a more appropriate to discuss zoning issue in general.
Here I've been carefully proposing minor changes to the zoning code, and Milwaukee just rips the band-aid off. lol
Here I've been carefully proposing minor changes to the zoning code, and Milwaukee just rips the band-aid off. lol
Comments
Is there anything on ADU's besides exempting them from certain requirements of other accessory structures? Are they only allowed where a duplex would otherwise be allowed then? Not in R-1 or R-2?
Will the zoning map be revisited regularly? I hope that as time goes on citizens in certain neighborhoods grow more amenable to denser zoning, allowing for incremental up zoning.
More of a suggestion from the fence section: it specifies "treated" wood, I'd also add something to the affect of "naturally rot resistant" woods to cover Cedar and niche woods like ipe or teak, no sense in discouraging the use of those or requiring special approval.
Other stuff I'm glad to see:
Less zoning types.
More allowances for home businesses.
Garages not projecting beyond the main front wall.
Allowances for cottage courts(!), co-ops and boarding/rooming houses.
The aesthetic guidelines throughout, particularly in the "building articulation" section.
The expanded R-MX zoning.
Besides the mere existence of R-1 and R-2 zoning I continue to be generally content with the FBC. All in all there seems to be some pretty sensible changes although I still haven't really looked it through thoroughly, the next 10 or 20 years ought to do a lot to inform future policy. It'll be fun to see what starts coming down the development pipeline.
What are your thoughts as someone who I assume has been working with this quite a bit? What changes do you like? What do you think is likely to be most impactful?
ADUs have largely been spearheaded by an advocacy group, as you may seen in the City Pulse the last few months. The Planning & Zoning Office crafted regulations we thought were appropriate and the group seems agreeable. It just might be brought up separately from the general changes so it hasn't been uploaded yet. It is in the May Planning Commission packet though, the last three pages. Apologies for the confusion.
Right now the proposed map mostly reflects merged districts since the city has to change the future land use map first, but best practice is to have a lot of public input and notice since it dictates what people can do with their property. Three years on since FBC and we still get calls from people confused that their zoning district changed. There are a lot of requests for duplexes-quadplexes from investors. I think there is a lot of opposition to middle housing densification just based on all the people who were opposed to the many lot splits of 2023. So it is tough to get into the map until there is a push to conduct those input meetings.
The new fence language is only to tighten up enforcement. There is some wacky things going on and the type of junk/scrap materials people put up or add as screening. There would be no denial of any wood type if it was manufactured for fencing.
I think the complete neighborhoods/"15 minute city" model is the best basis for zoning so i would like to see MX-1/MX-2 and R-3 (current R-6b) expanded around major neighborhood nodes and bus stops. Although there is an overabundance of commercial parcels and it is tough to have a thriving local business in this oligarchy-dominated capitalist society, creating spaces for that middle density of mixed-use development is probably key to marketing Lansing in the region. I didn't really expect Lansing corridors and district centers to transform into Barcelona superblocks overnight, but it has been discouraging to see the same old 4-over-1 apartments and suburban auto-dependent business (car washes, fast food) be like the only thing proposed the last three years.
I think it's important to point out to people in zoning debates that zoning laws are sort of anti-property rights by their nature, it's a case of neighbors dictating to neighbors what they can do with each others property. Most of us agree that drop forges and steel foundries don't belong near residential but there's a lot of grey area where NIMBY's seem to dominate the conversation. I like examples like what Milwaukee did above.
I love the idea of expanding where businesses can exist, I've talked about it before and I continue to think it's important. Same with denser residential. It will allow for more organic growth and more dynamic/interesting neighborhoods. Besides the impact on the aesthetics and livability of neighborhoods, lifting zoning restrictions is a really important way to help the smallest of small businesses, then with luck those small businesses grow and with a bit more luck they stay in town creating jobs and tax revenue. That attracts more entrepreneurial people and can (hopefully) create a positive feedback loop over time.
I too have been disappointed at the lack of larger or more interesting developments but these things take time. Lansing is coming from behind regionally in a region that's already far behind in a nation that's behind when it comes to vibrant cities. The Gentilozzi projects are a big barometer, if those don't happen or if they get scaled back my doubts will begin to seep in again. For what it's worth, in my 20+ years of following developments closely and being on the various local forums, there's never been more momentum than right now. I think that's true throughout the metro area as well. I give former mayor/regional leader Hollister a great deal of credit for that.
I mentioned a few of the changes that can be found in draft form and summarized on lansingmi.gov/374/zoning
General consolidation of zoning districts to simplify code.
Rooming houses and boarding houses. These are somewhat outdated concepts that were basically vestigial in previous zoning codes. Per a request we gave them proper definitions: a "rooming house" is a private residence with the homeowner renting out rooms to up to three unrelated adults (an addition of one resident that would otherwise be limited to two by the definition of a 'functional family') and a "boarding house" is a commercial enterprise akin to a single-room occupancy hotel, where residents may stay indefinitely in single rooms and shared kitchen/bathroom facilities. Responses and staff opinion leaned toward keeping boarding houses out of the residential districts.
Introduction of 'cottage courts' with 3-6 dwellings on one parcel in multi-family residential and DT-1. There was response to up the limit to 12 dwellings, but staff felt this was a good beginning step.
Introduction of 'residential cooperatives' to allow a co-op to share a single dwelling without being limited by the functional family dwelling. A co-op model that has detached units or share an apartment building were already allowed as 'multi-family residential', so this creates some flexibility for student housing like Spartan Housing Cooperative (currently have two houses in Lansing) and senior housing. Note: the cooperative would have to be properly incorporated and ownership to differentiate from rental housing.
Reduce the minimum dwelling width to 20'. Previously, any single-family dwelling on a lot greater than 40' in width had to have a house size minimum of 24' x 24'. The difference between 24' and 20' seems pretty inconsequential but CAHP and ICLB were proposing infill housing with 20' wide houses for a number of reasons, mainly space maximization. They had to reengineer a lot of their plans to satisfy this rule. Since most people aren't going to notice the difference, we proposed lowering 20' across the board.
Reduce secondary front setback on residential corner lots from 20' to 10'. There was another issue of trying to get infill housing on corner lots. ICLB usually prefers to sell these parcels to neighbors to add to their property, but they are stuck with many nobody has bought for them. This gives them a redevelopment option.
Remove minimum lot sizes for middle housing of two-to-six-dwelling-units. This is wonky so bear with me. Although R-6b and R-MX allow middle housing types on paper, there is a rule that requires any lot to have X amount of lot size per number of bedrooms in each dwelling unit. These numbers can currently be found in Section 1244.10.03. I'm not sure how they were figured out so they seem arbitrary to me. So, for example say a builder wanted a quadplex of 2-bedroom units. That property would need 12,000 square feet (a common 40' x 150' lot is 6,000 sq. ft.). My prime example is the 300 block of S Holmes St. These awesome quadplexes are on lots that are 5,391 sq. ft.; although shared parking takes up all open space, which is not ideal, but it shows that middle housing configurations can fit on normal sized lots. Currently someone would have to demolish the next 1-3 neighboring properties to actually fit a 2-6 unit building which defeats the purpose of in-fill housing and no person in their right mind would do this, so it was a de facto ban. The proposed change is confined to R-3 (previously R-6b) and R-MX and the current rule remains for buildings with 7+ units in R-MX and MFR as a density limit. Not ideal, so it is something to comprehensively rework so it is logical. Please let me know if this didn't make sense to anyone.
Ban snout houses. The proposed code is more emphatic to not allow house configurations with garages that project in front of the front building face or dominate the frontage.
Screening and business operations language. Rules to better control open storage and to screen any type of junk from street view. Also better language to cite nuisances and control dust, odor, noise, etc.
Junk materials. Rules to better control residences that attach tarp and junk to their porches and fences to create barriers. You might be surprised how prevalent this is.
Building articulation. New language to limit different cladding colors and styles from extending across building segments and floors. These buildings create a jarring visual on the built environment and can be incompatible to a pleasant pedestrian-scale experience.
Fences. Allow non-residential buildings to have 6' fencing in the front yard as long as it is wrought-iron, or a faux-material that has the same visual affect. This was a major request from businesses due to safety, trespassing, and theft. The code will still not allow chain-link or barbed wire.
Landscaping. Require businesses (through site plan review) to plant street trees and trees along all border areas where they do not exist. Require at least 75% of trees to be native species and not just ornamental. Require parking lot islands to have grass and plants instead of 100% 'landscape rocks' and mulch.
Front yard parking expansion. Disallow a property owner from expanding parking surfaces into a front yard in MX-2 (Combined MX-2 and MX-3) and DT-3, and along an activity corridor street type, when a demolition or lot combination takes place.
Bicycle parking. Remove all exemptions from installing required bicycle parking.
Allowable Land Uses. The tables can be found in 1243.03, 1244.04, and 1245.03. Since there are a lot of little changes I won't go over them, but I made a comment about being more flexible with light industrial operations in commercial districts. Assembly, manufacturing, and production, with nuisance controls, would be allowed in MX-C (combined SC and MX-C) and DT-2. Commercial corridors all over are barely hanging on and there are vacancies everywhere. This gives us some flexibility. One example I have is a manufacturer of packing and shipping materials using recycled materials loved 340 E Edgewood Blvd (SC district), but they went outside the city because they couldn't find another building big enough in an industrial area. Super cool business and the spot totally makes sense but land use rules stood in the way. I am cognizant that manufacturing does not make sense in neighborhood or district commercial or downtown, so that is why it is just those two zones.
Production with any retail sales (think bakery, brewpub, bike shop, etc.) would be allowed in any commercial district except DT-1. Previously 20% of gross floor area had to be devoted to sales. Not dictating the actual size of the salesfloor, gives businesses a lot more flexibility for what works for them.
One last point - self-storage rental as an accessory use. A lot of developers were looking for loopholes to allow self-storage anywhere as long as the building had some other use. New rules to head this off include making it a conditional use only in MX-C and DT-2 and 1. Permitted on non-local streets. 2. All activities conducted, and materials stored shall be within an enclosed structure. 3. Storage operations shall not exceed 50% of the principal building's gross floor area. 4. No storage activities or floor area shall be located along the primary frontage. 5. No storage activities, operations, or storage pods may be located on the exterior of the parcel.
Also, thanks for refreshing us on this.
I like the changes to basically legalize building fourplexes, again, like what is down on Holmes Street.
On that last part "Allowable land uses" I was kind of hinting at self-storage as what I wasn't crazy about expanding zoning for - wasn't that what 340 E Edgewood Blvd was going to be? - but I see it's primarily motivated by other factors. I'm especially open to with production expansion with retail sales, since you're still keeping "eyes on the street" with at least part of the use. EDITED OUT (misread the original post)
Principal "self-storage rental" still requires a special land use permit in MX-C (combined SC and MX-C) and staff and council will still be very critical of any proposals for the reasoning you stated. I don't think there are any self-storage places downtown besides CubeSmart, which is off the beaten path south of Kalamazoo St.? Are you saying accessory self-storage should have been left off from DT-2? You might be right and that may have been an oversight to correct.
I am definitely sympathetic to removing it from commercial generally. Delta Township is undergoing a zoning edit effort to ban them from non-industrial districts right now.
But, what were you talking about originally when you mentioned 342 East Edgewood? Last I'd heard was that self-storage proposal a few years back.