The draft Land Use Plan provides formal direction on multi-family housing that has not been included before in the Comprehensive Plan. The draft Land Use Plan provides guidance for stronger restrictions on multi-family development, including:
- a definitive statement that no new standalone, single-use, multi-family residential development within the city should be approved;
- policy direction on the appropriate proportion of multi-family units (condo-ownership or rental) is envisioned to be not more than 12 percent of the total housing units in the city and extraterritorial jurisdiction (ETJ) at any one time;
- limiting to specific types of development where this style of housing is appropriate to be located; and
- particular design features to focus on the integration within an overall development.
In comparison, the City’s current R-4 (multi-family) zoning district regulations reflect previous policy guidance regarding stand-alone multi-family housing from the existing Land Use Plan - including that there should be no more than 20 dwelling units per acre and a maximum of 200 units at any single location. No vacant R-4 zoned property exists in the city limits today and the draft Land Use Plan update recommends no new standalone, single-use, multi-family residential development within the city should be approved.
Additionally, multi-family developed in Planned Residential or Mixed Use areas through a Planned Development process has been determined on a case-by-case basis, as the R-4 zoning district requirements do not apply to the Planned Development zoning district. The Land Use Plan update now provides clear guidance for PDs, limits the specific locations within the city that such residential development should be allowed, and subjects any new multi-family residential to an overall citywide proportion as well as site-specific guidance.
As a note, the bulk of existing multi-family apartments and condos in the city today were not developed in accordance with Land Use Plan polices or R-4 zoning regulations as they were built prior to being annexed into the city or prior to the multi-family zoning regulations being adopted.