Time to re-visit German Town?

I completely agree with Tom’s desire for lot size restrictions and with Tom’s and Alice’s desire for restrictions on the number of bedrooms in an apartment.

If we should have learned anything from the complete failure of the A2D2 zoning changes it is that this kind of broad change will have many unintended consequences. Council failed to heed the warnings about the flaws in the A2D2, will they also fail to do the R4C correctly?

Alice, can you clarify what you mean by that?

This planning commission has shown that it will gleefully approve lot combinations for very inappropriate developments in residential areas. But the people of this community have spoken loudly and often that they are tired of having to fight to keep large-scale developments out of residential-scale neighborhoods. If this planning commission wants to continue its quest to maximize population density in the D1 downtown district, then they need to send a message that it is not appropriate to allow large-scale developments to sprawl out into neighborhoods. To curb suburban sprawl, we need to be encouraging families, working people, and retirees to return to the neighborhoods within the city limits. These are the people who buy houses and condos and have the freedom to choose between a new house in the country or an existing neighborhood in the city.

Secondly, there needs to be a ban on any new dwelling units with more than four bedrooms outside of group housing zones (if those are indeed created). Five and six-bedroom units are built with only one purpose in mind: the housing of undergraduate students. We need to encourage diversity and flexibility in new construction, and one to four-bedroom units are flexible–especially one and two bedroom units. Unfortunately, the revisions to the R4C being recommended will actually put language into the zoning ordinance for the first time referring to five and six-bedroom dwelling units. We should not give these jumbo units this legitimacy.

Recent approvals of five and six-bedroom dwelling units have only been granted based on a very loose interpretation of the code that stipulates that in R4 areas, up to “six unrelated persons may share a housekeeping unit.” By the definitions in the zoning and housing ordinance, a housekeeping unit is NOT a dwelling unit, and in fact, six unrelated persons could share a three-bedroom dwelling unit, provided the rooms were sized appropriately. There’s nothing to dictate each occupant of a housekeeping unit having his or her own bedroom.

Five and six bedroom apartments–especially those where tenants are grouped with complete strangers, with separate leases and deadbolt locks on their bedrooms–are actually rooming houses by any common, ordinary definition. They are certainly not functioning as “housekeeping units” which are defined as such in order accommodate non-traditional families or groups of students who choose to share an old house together. The housing code defines a housekeeping unit as “A dwelling unit ORGANIZED AS A SINGLE ENTITY, IN WHICH MEMBERS OF THE HOUSEHOLD share common kitchen facilities, and HAVE ACCESS TO ALL PARTS OF THE UNIT.”

As with any new zoning provisions, existing buildings and houses are exempt as long as they continue to operate as they have been, so this would not affect the large, undivided houses currently being shared by students and others. It would only apply to new buildings or buildings that are substantially altered.