By Alta LeCompte Las Cruces Bulletin
A 38-page, graphics-heavy document will come under official and public scrutiny Monday, Jan. 12, when the Las Cruces City Council holds its first discussion of a proposed new zoning code for Downtown.
At a work session following the 1 p.m. meeting of the Tax Increment Development District (TIDD), the council will devote time to the code written by PlaceMakers LLC, the firm that conducted the October 2013 charrette to gather public input on the community’s vision for Downtown.
Both senior city planner Andy Hume andHazelBorys,principalof PlaceMakers, said the form-based code proposal should contain few surprises, since its concepts have been under discussion since the 1990s.
“There were no significant changes from the work the public saw during the charrette, just some minor functionality edits,” Borys said. “Most of the discussion was relative to smaller technical details … and (to) assure the process continues to be as transparent and simple as possible.”
The logic of form-based zoning regs
Since the goal for Downtown is its evolution into a vibrant core where people work, live, eat, shop and pursue cultural and recreational activities, the code actively encourages mixed-use development, Hume said.
He said the city’s current conventional code focuses on how space should be used and aims to separate uses such as residential and commercial. While it doesn’t explicitly prohibit mixed uses, doesn’t encourage them. “The form-based code makes it more explicit, saying a mixed use is a good use,” Hume said.
He said a revitalized Downtown, encouraged by form-based zoning, might have a building with ground-floor retail space, second floor offices and residential space on the third floor.
“There’s plenty of activity Downtown from 8 to 5, but after 5 there’s nothing,” Hume said. “It’s so important to a high level of vibrancy.”
Certain uses already outlawed in the conventional code would continue to be dis-allowed Downtown under the form-based code, Hume said.
“A form-based code goes into more detail regarding buildings than a conventional code,” he said. “But it doesn’t go into regulating use of building materials, that it’s OK to use adobe but not brick, stucco but not wood, for example.
“It has a lot to do with achieving human scale, considering how a building interacts with the sidewalk and street, how it works within the context of human scale.”
He said although Downtown needs a little more density, Las Crucens don’t want buildings that overpower the neighborhood.
“One of the things we heard, even at the charrette, was, ‘We’re not Manhattan; we don’t want gargantuan buildings,’” he said. “And that makes sense.”
Parking integral to development
Since the vision is to develop city-owned parking lots behind Main Street’s commercial buildings, the city will have to address the availability of parking through regulations in the near term and garage construction later.
The new code introduces the concept of “shared parking by right.”
“Parking is not currently by right,” Hume said.
He said shared parking by right means people who work Downtown would have parking privileges from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and when they pull out in the evening there would be opportunities for other uses, such as for restaurant goers.
Signage and other communication, enforcement and possibly resident stickers would be required to make the parking system work.
“If we’re looking at an opportunity for single-family home construction on the periphery of Downtown, the code promotes rear access to off-street parking. It’s been done quite a bit in the Alameda Depot district because there’s not a lot of garages,” Hume said.
“We may enter into a situation where for the first time in a long time parking Downtown would be paid for,” he said. “We may have to get used to it.”
He said an earlier parking study that was updated in 2012 did suggest eventual garage construction.
“Garages are not a code issue,” Hume said. “As development occurs, infrastructure is continually looked at. The next large infrastructure project is probably a garage to eliminate problems.
“Parking garages are not cheap. When we have large projects like the Federal Building, they built an underground garage.”
Vetting the proposal
Hume said staff is seeking council’s approval to go ahead with soliciting public input on the proposed form-based code.
If council agrees, he said he will develop a time line that will likely include stakeholder meetings and public input sessions through February.
“I don’t anticipate this dragging on for a long time, but we don’t want to just scoot it through,” Hume said.
He said adoption of the draft code would be by a council vote to repeal and replace the current code for the central business district.
“It would require an ordinance change, which means at least two council meetings,” he said.