CodeNEXT’s Density Bonus Program

Land use commissioners met again on Tuesday to continue their marathon of meetings as CodeNEXT races toward an ambiguous finish line. The Planning Com­mission met first for a short consent agenda, during which Chair Stephen Oliver proposed two additional meetings, following the CodeNEXT public hearings on April 28 and May 1, meaning PC will meet every week in May to iron out Draft Three recommendations for City Council. Oliver also asked staff to outline the "consent items" (aka draft sections they believe the community accepts), in an effort to guide commissioners to sections that need attention, and implored community stakeholders to submit recommendations by April 24, so commissioners have enough time to digest those and bake that feedback into their own recommendations. Afterward, Planning commissioners joined the Zoning & Platting Commission for a presentation on the latest draft's Housing Affordability and Density Bonus Program. This section, like several others in the third draft, introduces an entirely new set of proposals and text. ZAP last week accused the proposed program of being too complicated for developers.

The presentation confirmed that some of the findings of the PC's working group, which has been experimenting with mapping levers, were incorporated into draft three. Specifically, their work can be found in the zoning designation "-A," which is attached to areas that would be zoned mixed-use for the first time under CodeNEXT. Those zones will require that any developer wishing to build residential mixed-use automatically opt into a density bonus program, thereby guaranteeing more income-restricted units. The presentation also covered the city's S.M.A.R.T. Housing program as well as numerous math equations to show commissioners how the new and multiple density bonuses were calculated.