Zoning overhaul coming in Columbus
13,000 parcels along bus routes will be affected
The owners of 13,000 properties in Columbus — mainly those on main bus transportation thoroughfares — will have their zoning and all the associated rules that go with it changed over the summer under City Council’s planned update of the city’s zoning code.
City officials say the long-discussed zoning overhaul would streamline the approval process for developing more badly needed housing, reduce a Columbus-area shortage, and reduce historic racism.
However, critics say the zoning code overhaul is being done to please developers — major political donors to Mayor Andrew J. Ginther and city council members — by removing ways that neighborhood groups and residents can interfere with their building projects.
What would zoning changes mean for Columbus neighborhoods?
Among other things, the proposed changes are expected to:
● Usher in taller buildings.
● Result in fewer expensive parking lots or garages with more apartment residents vying for parking spaces on city streets.
● Reduce site-by-site community negotiations for “variances” from the existing city building code, a process that begins in the city’s neighborhood area commissions, whose members are appointed by council, and where residents can begin to provide input.
Property owners living along major transportation corridors served by the Central Ohio Transit Authority (COTA) may receive letters notifying them of changes that apply to their parcels by as early as next month, even though the city isn’t required to notify them, officials said Monday.
City Council began amending the zoning code Monday in what it said
was laying out a process that eventually will lead to a set of amendments to the city’s current zoning code, and the ultimate complete replacement of the existing code with a new set of building rules later this year.
Monday’s changes will allow council to rezone parcels in phases by ordinance, said Council President Pro Tem Rob Dorans, who is leading the rezoning effort. The first phase will amount to a rezoning of about 13,000 parcels located mainly along main city bus routes.
The result would be to make neighborhoods denser and more walkable. About 80% of the targeted transportation corridors currently ban residential development, either totally or on the ground floor, and a current 35-foot height limitation and off-street parking requirements make it costly for developers, officials have said.
At this point, the city hasn’t said what exactly is going to change neighborhood by neighborhood. Council plans to unveil those new zoning rules beginning in the next month, Dorans said.
After that, a series of zoning ordinances will transfer parcels to the new code’s jurisdiction in phases, with required public hearings and public comment periods to allow for neighborhood feedback, he said.
Dorans said that the changes approved on Monday evening would lock any parcels ultimately moved into the new zoning code from being rezoned again afterward.
“Once they move into a new Title 34 (the new code, as opposed to Title 33, the existing code), they will stay there,” Dorans said. Council approved the measures on Monday as “emergencies,” disregarding a first reading and 30-day waiting period before changes can take effect so that public hearings on planned zoning changes can begin next month on schedule.
“Essentially what (Monday’s) legislation does is sets up the process” to change the zoning code, Dorans said. “.... The legislation that is in front of us is not the zoning code update or the changes to the map,” which will be unveiled in April.
Concerns over lack of public input on zoning changes
But Rachel Wenning, zoning chair of the Greater Hilltop Area Commission, said the council has been withholding the details of what it was planning to vote on Monday until after a public hearing held two weeks ago, making it impossible for people to comment on its plans.
“This is common sense, but I think a lot of times Council seems to prefer that they appear to be taking input rather than actually be taking input,” Wenning said.
Council has deemed the legislation approved Monday as an “emergency” to allow only one reading of the ordinance, but the emergency is “the city has set deadlines for itself that it wants to meet,” and that’s not an actual emergency, she said.
“All of this shows that the changes are being intentionally rushed through, I think, to avoid public input,” Wenning said. She asked that council table the vote.
Dorans responded that residents will have months to comment on the changes over the summer while acknowledging city officials “need to do a better job” on the front end. It will be very clear what the zoning changes mean for the owners of affected properties, he said.
Councilmember Nick Bankston went further, scolding Wenning for not getting on board with the city zoning changes. He told Wenning that he would appreciate that “you take the responsibility to not simply talk about the conspiracy theory that you made up, but actually put the post out there so that folks can know what’s going on, actually do the work that we are meant to do.
“This is going to be the biggest thing that we have to do as a community. And what we need right now is for folks to lean in ... instead of coming up with these ridiculous scenarios that just don’t exist. And I am tired of it,” Bankston said. “I am tired of folks who have a platform that instead of celebrating any small win, everything is negative.”
The city is going to “set up an entire war room” that will be manned seven days a week for the public to ask questions, Bankston said. “But that’s lost, lost in the conversation ...”
Bankston apologized to Dorans “to take this kind of tone,” but said city employees “out on the front line” are being yelled at, disrespected and “lied on.”
Wenning asked if she could respond to Bankston’s charges, but Bankston quickly shut her down, informing her that her time to speak had expired.
Other Columbus City Council business
In a related action Monday, the council extended the city’s contract with Lisa Wise Consulting for consulting on the zoning changes by one year without increasing the up to $1.85 million price tag. The Dispatch reported in March 2022 that the California-based consultant had advised the city’s major zoning changes initially should be confined to three “regional growth corridors:” Main Street east from Downtown through the Near East Side and East Side; Broad Street west from Downtown through Franklinton and the Hilltop; and potentially Olentangy River Road north past Ohio State University.
Other more suburban Columbus neighborhoods don’t need any major zoning changes because they are newer with larger lots that can handle the current restrictions on property-line setbacks, parking and other requirements, Wise said in a virtual hearing in 2021.
Wise’s report also found that the way the city’s zoning code is currently written means that too many individual (development) cases have to be negotiated. That results in rezonings or variances, which require several layers of approval. Developers say the time it takes to get those passed is often too long and costly. Residents say they often end up with developments they don’t want.
A summary of Wise’s study says Columbus’ zoning code standards aren’t tailored to specific neighborhood conditions, do not prioritize transit and future housing needs — including affordable housing — and are generally too complicated.
wbush@gannett.com