Greenwood development guide getting overhauled

If you want to change the sign on your Greenwood business, raise chickens in your backyard or build a shed on your property, you will likely have to file a petition with the city and go before its board of zoning appeals — more than once.

Greenwood officials are working to change what exactly is allowed and make the process easier for the public, developers and themselves to navigate by adding charts, maps, even a glossary and appendix.

The city is paying a Cincinnati-based consultant more than $152,000 to modernize its zoning rules, which officials hope will save residents, developers and its leaders time and, in some cases, money.

Last year, Greenwood hired Calfee Zoning, which specializes in city planning, to study, update and redesign its decades-old zoning code that was first introduced in 1982 and has not been overhauled since, said Bill Peeples, Greenwood’s planning director.

Today, Greenwood has three times the number of residents it did then, and more and more businesses are expanding or relocating to the city.

The zoning code is the city’s play book which guides land use and dimensional specifications for everything from street lights and signs to the distance a porch can protrude from a house and how wide a garage can be depending on the square-footage of a home.

But the current code isn’t clear because it leaves too much room for interpretation, city officials agreed during a recent training session.

Also, a rising number of exceptions to the code are being requested, which indicates it’s no longer consistent with what residents, business owners or city leaders want.

Last year, 29 variance petitions were brought before the board of zoning appeals, which reviews all change requests by weighing it against requirements in the original zoning code and the goals that are laid out in the city’s comprehensive plan, which is updated more regularly. Most variance petitions were from businesses requesting changes to their signs that do not meet the requirements in the zoning code.

The board approved 24 of the 29 requests.

Homeowners, business owners, schools and churches, among others, can petition for a use variance when they want to do something different than what a piece of land is zoned for, or a dimensional variance when they want to do something different on their property than what the current code allows, such as replace an old sign with a new one, or allow chickens to be housed in a residential yard or have a bigger garage than what the city decided was adequate in the 1980s. The board has to conduct a public hearing and either approve or deny every request.

“The more variances you see, obviously the zoning doesn’t reflect what people want to do with property here,” said Sean Suder, a partner at Calfee.

The number of variance petitions is up from five in 2013.

“I would think the idea would be to have a code where we wouldn’t have as many appeals, and it seems like a lot of them are the same things,” said Phil Tinkle, who serves on both the board of zoning appeals and the plan commission.

Calfee has done several studies since starting work on the project last summer, which showed that a big chunk of Greenwood’s current code does not reflect what the city wants, at least according to its comprehensive plan.

One major problem that’s been identified is the original plan is geared toward a strictly suburban area. While Greenwood is still a suburb, it’s much more than that now. And having one set of standards for a city its size is no longer feasible, Suder said.

“One size does not fit all. We’re going to have to be pretty specific about where certain things apply. I don’t see any way around that,” he said.

“Not many places have an Old Town, an airport, a regional mall, a huge distribution area, single-family, condos, apartments, golf courses, every kind of retail you can imagine, agriculture … and that’s the challenge for your zoning. A lot of places, especially in the suburbs, don’t have that at all.”

Although it is a challenge for zoning, it’s a good problem to have, he said.

“People have different visions. There are some people who want to keep everything the way it was — the old architecture, the downtown — then there are people who want to modernize it, and I think the biggest problem is that clash of mindsets,” said Bob Dine, a city councilman.

“Hopefully we can get it to where I can read it and understand it … I don’t have to have it interpreted by three different people and everybody comes to me with a different opinion and everybody has a conflict when the time comes to vote on it.”

Calfee is working to fix that, Suder said.

Council member Linda Gibson said city officials need to do a better job of making sure there’s a smooth transition from residential to commercial areas. For example, residents in her district have complained when businesses build near neighborhoods and install bright lights that are left on throughout the night.

That probably wasn’t an issue 27 years ago. But it is now.

They also need to make it clear to developers that the city is looking for variety, especially when it comes to housing options, she said.

“We need to find a way to help developers understand that we’re wanting variety. We don’t want just the same thing duplicated over and over again,” Gibson said.

In order to modernize the code, it’s important to pay attention to trends, Suder said.

For example, despite the city’s desire for more estate-level homes, small lots have become the trend again.

“It makes sense for certain parts of your community, but it doesn’t make any sense for other parts. I think having that mix of options is so important. I think the key nowadays is you can’t expect to thrive as a community if you don’t have a diversity of options for housing,” Suder said.

“If your kids don’t want to move back here because they don’t want a single-family home, then they’re going to move somewhere else. Or if it doesn’t have the amenities or a walk-able downtown, they may go somewhere else more fun, more interesting. What if you’re aging out of your single-family home and you don’t want to cut a quarter-acre lawn anymore? If you don’t have anywhere to (downsize to), you’re going to go somewhere else.”

During the next several months, city officials will discuss and decide what’s important to them, and determine which requirements to keep, remove and add to the code.

“Regulate what you care about,” Suder said. “You don’t care what every light fixture looks like on the exterior of a building, but you do care about how a building relates to other buildings and to a neighborhood.”

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Here is a look at the number of variance petitions that came before Greenwood’s board of zoning appeals the past five years:

2017; 29

2016; 22

2015; 12

2014; 11

2013; 5

Source: Greenwood annual reports

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