While the city waits to get its hands on a draft of the new zoning code ordinance, planners and the city attorney did their best to answer questions about the weeklong charrette last month that helped create it.
Wednesday's monthly Committee of the Whole meeting was almost exclusively dedicated to the zoning code rewrite, with staff giving an overview of the new "smart code" and a status update before fielding questions from members of the Common Council. On the final day of the charrette, Feb. 12, planners from consulting firm PlaceMakers told an audience of about 40 people that the city needs two more zoning classifications - "general urban" and "urban center" - in order to properly implement its comprehensive plan.
Both of the new codes would be "form-based" rather than Euclidean, meaning the design and size of the buildings is, in general, more important than how they are used.
On Wednesday, city planners Tom Hovel and Susan Sloper and city attorney Mark Sewell explained that specific questions about how the smart code will affect the city will be much easier to answer and understand once the first draft comes back from PlaceMakers.
Phil Sveum, a developer in the Northeast Neighborhood, which could be the first test case for the smart code, expressed some uneasiness about the new classifications and how it might apply to his land.
"I think overall that would be my problem, my final conclusion of the use of the weeklong charrette and that it did generate probably more questions that are still out there than answers," Sveum said.
In particular, he was concerned about rough plans PlaceMakers drew up of a neighborhood under smart code as a demonstration during the charrette. He said the plans PlaceMakers designed called for 3,500 feet more in roadways, an increase in parkland by 50 percent and a decrease in density compared with what his land consultants recommended.
"I really didn't know what to expect," Sveum said. "I still don't know what to expect, but I really didn't think it would be that kind of an impact."
As a result, Sveum asked for the city to release the first draft to the public as soon as possible. Mayor Jay Allen said he had no intention of holding the draft back unnecessarily.
Allen also pointed out, however, that one major reason for adding smart code to the city's "toolbox" was redevelopment, not just new development.
"To do the redevelopment of Ridgewood, we have no tool right now that can adequately do what needs to be done there to provide the type of increment that's going to be needed to be pay for the developing improvements," Allen said. "We need smart code to do that."
After the city passed its comprehensive plan last March, it arranged a zoning code rewrite, which began Dec. 2. The plan calls for the city to move toward more mixed-use developments - retail, industry and residential uses in the same blocks of land - and that's difficult to achieve under the current zoning codes. Sloper said.
The smart code will not be applied to the entire city and will be optional for developers, planners have said. Allen said Green Tech Village and the Northeast Neighborhood would be ideal to be developed under the new code.
The plans for Green Tech Village have been temporarily put on hold because of issues with it conforming to the comprehensive plan, but Allen said he's been contacted by developers who are willing to work with the city to continue the plan under smart code.
Once the draft code comes back to the city sometime in late March or early April, it will be referred out to several city committees for approval. From there, it will go before the Plan Commission and then ultimately the Common Council, which Allen estimated last month would happen sometime in June or July.
