Housing Overlay Zone approved
Special City Council meeting Monday on proposed project
The Ukiah Planning Commission recently approved a “Housing Overlay Zone” designation for three parcels on East Gobbi Street, a change allowing any housing projects proposed for the site to move forward with only a building permit as long as they meet certain city standards.
Before the zone was approved, Associate Planner Mireya Turner told the commission that “this is the first one the city has created,” and that it would allow housing “by right,” which she said means that “a developer in this location would only need a building permit,” provided they complied with the established design and development standards.
“We have objective development design standards that we have fully vetted, so we still have local control,” added Community Development Director Craig Schlatter, describing the prop
erty as “a unique set of three parcels” that the city had purchased as part of the same process deployed for the apartments recently built on North Main Street: “Where the city purchases the parcels, and the developer pays rent into the Housing Trust Fund to then develop the parcels, at hopefully at a little bit of a reduced cost in the beginning, which allows them to be more competitive in their funding applications.”
As for the three parcels on East Gobbi Street, Schlatter said a special meeting of the Ukiah City Council had been scheduled for March 8 in connection with the proposed development for the property, “which would allow that project to move forward and potentially be built even as early as this year, or next year.”
When asked if those design standards would apply to the commercial space as well, given that the project planned for the parcels includes both residential and commercial uses, Schlatter said first that all plans were still preliminary, and that the City Council would be hearing more about the plans soon.
In terms of the design standards, Schlatter said the Housing Overlay Zone applied only to the housing aspects, and the commercial spaces would still be subjected to “some sort of an entitlement process, including Planning Commission and Design Review Board review.”
All three members of the Planning Commission voted to approve the Housing Overlay Zone, though Commissioner Mark Hilliker said he did so “reluctantly.” Hilliker also asked about the community garden that used to be on one of the parcels, and whether an alternative location had been found “for those people who were growing food there?”
Turner said she did not know if another location had been found, only that the garden was no longer active.