Kansas City Updating Old Zoning, Way Ahead of St. Louis in Effort
Via the Kansas City Star:
Kansas City is about to overhaul its zoning ordinance for the first time in half a century, with significant changes anticipated for landscaping, parking and housing throughout the city.
A consultant team and steering committee undertook a painstaking review and revision of the city’s zoning and subdivision regulations in the past 18 months. A draft ordinance should be ready for release on the city’s Web site by spring.
City officials say the public will have plenty of opportunity to comment. If all goes as planned, the City Council could vote on the new rules sometime in the summer or fall.
It’s high time for Kansas City to join other cities in moving past the suburban growth patterns and auto dependency that characterized the zoning approach of the 1950s and ’60s, says Chicago-based consultant Kirk Bishop, executive vice president of Duncan Associates.
“Those regulations have gotten out of date, out of sync with the diversity of today’s modern city,†he said.
Sound familiar? Kansas City, like St. Louis, adopted a major city plan in 1947 but both city’s zoning codes have remained stuck in that period. It seems the leadership in KC has the political will to actually do something about their outdated zoning. Meanwhile we have a hot shot urban planner on staff that is basically bound and gagged.
From the same article:
Planners recognize that Kansas City has sometimes had excessive parking requirements, promoting the proliferation of lots and hindering small retail development and street activity. New rules would lower the minimum number of parking spaces required downtown to encourage small retail development.
Bishop says the goal is to reduce inconsistencies, establishing minimum expectations for landscaping and parking that would be more fair and predictable.
At the urging of Kansas City’s bicycle clubs, Kansas City also would adopt certain requirements for bicycle parking, so cyclists have accessible places to lock their bikes.
Kansas City may not have won the World Leadership Award but it would appear they are taking important steps in the right direction. Mayor Slay should have assembled a similar steering committee to work on St. Louis’ zoning following the 2005 adoption of the new Strategic Land Use Plan.  For the most part, our land use plan remains in limbo until the zoning is actually updated.
“A consultant team and steering committee undertook a painstaking review and revision of the city’s zoning and subdivision regulations in the past 18 months. A draft ordinance should be ready for release on the city’s Web site by spring.
City officials say the public will have plenty of opportunity to comment. If all goes as planned, the City Council could vote on the new rules sometime in the summer or fall.”
Sounds pretty optomistic to me. Waiting to solicit public input until AFTER the draft ordinance is completed is a sure way to kill the project. The thing about Zoning, especially one as old as KC’s (and Denver’s) is that it’s a patchwork of amendments and special zone districts that represent properties with multiple vested interests. Vested interests = opposition to change = claims of “government takings”. Given a whole lot of (too much?) public opposition and it becomes easier to kill the bill than to amend it. Don’t get me wrong – I wish KC the best of luck, but doing things behind closed doors (St. Louis style!) combined with affecting private property uses and values (although mostly perceived and not real) will be a major challenge and most likely fatal!
Obviously, I’m much more versed in Denver’s efforts. Their Zoning Ordinance dates to 1957, is now more than 700 pages long, with probably 30+ basic zone districts, plus multiple overlay zone districts, historic districts and planned-unit developments. The core code is a traditional use-by-right, prescriptive code. Newer parts are much more form based and subject to interpretation at the staff level. They’re currently struggling with the same thing KC is, bringing the Code into the 21st Century and streamlining the whole document and the whole development process. The hurdles they continue to face, both with the current code and with the proposed changes, is that many, many property owners view any dimunition of their existing “rights” as a takings, a threat to their investment, big brother messing with them and/or fear through ignorance. My experience has been that the “good guys” (planning staff, neighborhood representatives and elected officials) are willing to invest the time and effort (multiple meetings) to move the process forward, only to face stiff opposition when the proposed changes make it to city council and their committee process. It’s easier for a property owner to scream “unfair” and/or “lawsuit” than to be a part of the process, and it’s easier for council to vote down a bill that has significant and/or vocal opposition than to show the spine needed to make hard changes. In some ways, I agree with them – it’s scary to consider having a well-crafted bill significantly amended on the floor in response to specific objections. But it’s scarier still to keep the status quo. Bottom line, it boils down to education, to show that the changes are not going to result in a significant reduction in property values, won’t create significant new hurdles to development and/or will not be a bigger burden than the current system. Like I said, I’m not familiar with KC’s specific efforts, so I’m drawing a parallel to Denver’s. And, unfortunately, I’m also seeing a lot less momentum to change things in St. Louis. I’m guessing it’s for many of the same reasons outlined above combined with a much lower level of development pressure – “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” combined with limited resources to create new processes when there are other, “greater needs” in balancing the budget . . .