City staff have initiated the creation of a zoning use table. The Zoning Ordinance currently lists the allowed permitted and conditional uses in list form for each zoning district. If a resident, developer, contractor, or staff wants to determine what zoning districts a certain use is allowed in, they must read each individual section of the code to determine if a certain use is allowed.

Staff is proposing to provide two tables to display the code information on permitted and conditional uses, with one table for commercial / industrial zones and another table for residential zones. The initial use tables were presented to the Planning Commission at a public hearing in June and at a City Council Workshop in August. The Planning Commission continued the public hearing at the June meeting and reviewed the revised tables on November 8th and voted 7-0 to recommend approval to the City Council.

Since the initial workships, staff have since added accessory uses to the table and also added a comparison table, that allows the existing use and proposed uses to be compared easily side-by-side. Blanks are added to both the existing and proposed tables when classifications have been combined, or removed to easily compare the existing version to the proposed version (See attached comparison tables).  

A table of uses is intended to eliminate errors, omissions and redundancies and reduce confusion. This proposed revision is also intended to streamline and simplify areas where some conditional use permits are seen as unnecessary or burdensome, such as fitness facilities in some of the commercial zones.

After a new Comprehensive Plan is adopted, parts of the zoning code must be revised to conform with the plan. This specific text amendment is intended to simplify the ordinance, clarify certain areas, and provide minor revisions, not completely re-write and re-classify. Having a table that outlines the different uses will simplify future revisions to the zoning ordinance. When the time comes to revise the ordinance based on the comprehensive plan, a table will streamline the process.

The zoning ordinance has been revised numerous times over the years and not all of the terms used for text amendments match terms used in other chapters of the code. When staff first created the table, we found similar names for the same types of land uses, such as a classification of "offices" in one district  and "administrative and professional offices" in another district. Staff also found some uses that didn't necessarily make sense for particular

zones, such as allowing "Riding Academies" in the Sewered Rural Residential Zone. The Sewered Rural Residential Zone code was based off of the Rural Residential Zone code and is a district for existing rural residential subdivisions that have been recently provided sewer service, such as Hilldale Drive and Beckrich Park Estates. Staff believes it does not make sense for the zoning ordinance to allow horseback riding academies in existing neighborhoods where lots are less than 1 acre in size.

Staff also removed some of the listed uses that don't fit in the context of a specific zoning district, or were in place to address a specific user. An example is allowing funeral homes or hospitals in the R1C zoning district. Both of these uses were in place for specific users that no longer exist. Staff believes that allowing a future hospital or funeral home in the R1C zone is not appropriate.  Another change was adding short term rentals as an allowed accessory use in many zoning districts. A short term rental would be allowing a room, or entire house to be rented for up to 60 days in a calendar year.

The uses on the table are categorized as "A" for accessory, "P" for Permitted Uses, and "C" for Conditional Uses. An asterisk (*) denotes that specific conditions or definitions must be met, such as a drive-thru window is a permitted use, but stacking for 6 vehicles must be provided, along with other conditions. Specific conditions for a use will be left in the code, outside of the table to not complicate the table. With the proposed tables, the number of pages of the zoning code would be reduced by approximately 130  pages.