The Flagstaff City Council has advanced recommendations to the City Code to help address local housing and climate goals.
Work was first begun in 2023 on the Land Availability and Suitability Study and Code Analysis Project. Since then, a study of all the buildable land in the city has been completed, as have a City Code analysis for housing and climate goals and several reports on how the Code can be changed to advance those goals.
Code adjustments are planned to align with the City’s 10-year housing plan, 2045 Regional Plan and climate action plan.
The recommendations focus on six target areas:
- Increases to maximum density,
- Addition of a scaled floor area ration ratio requirement,
- Reducing parking requirements,
- Mandating a sustainable design baseline,
- Integrating incentive programs and
- Refining other standards.
The LASS identified 82 acres as zoned for R1 single-family, 26 acres as manufactured housing, 24 acres in medium-density residential, 20 acres in high-density residential and 13 in commercial areas.
Drafting a Code amendment to address the recommendations and completing an internal review and public outreach is expected to take between 150 and 180 days. Those processes will be followed by a Planning and Zoning Commission hearing and a first and second reading by City Council, all of which are expected to take another 107 days.
Under the recommendations, allowed densities will be increased for all zones. In the central business area, heights will increase under conditional use permits to four-to-five stories and 60 units/acre, compared to the current two-to-three stories and 29 units/acre.
Developers will be encouraged to provide a mix of unit sizes under updated floor area ratio requirements. A maximum FAR will establish a cap on unit sizes to encourage more units versus larger units.
Tiers of incentives would be implemented depending on densities.
Standards will remain the same to ensure new developments retain area character, and procedures for determining infrastructure and mitigation requirements would also remain in place.
The recommendations also include reducing minimum parking requirements for new developments. The average number of spaces would drop from an average of 1.75 spaces/unit to between 1.0 and 1.25.
Existing incentive options would be retained for developments located near transit, affordable units and developments that provide bicycle parking or provide transit passes.
Incentives for affordable housing and sustainable development will be combined under a three-tiered program, with the first including sustainable design, the second including affordable housing units and the third rewarding projects that do both.
Developers will be given a menu of sustainable features they can select from, and planned residential development standards will be allowed by-right, rather than as an incentive. There will be a total of 34 options under seven categories, and options will have point values assigned. (Source: Arizona Daily Sun)