Presenter
Presenter: Jean Drew, Senior Planner
Title
ORD21-129 Public Hearing and recommendation to City Council of an ordinance to revise sections 144 -1.3, Definitions, to define efficiency/studio apartments, and to 144-5.1-3 Schedule of Required Spaces to identify parking standards for efficiency/studio apartments.
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DEPARTMENT: Planning and Development Services Department
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COUNCIL DISTRICTS IMPACTED: This would be a city-wide revision, thus potentially impacting all City Council Districts.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION:
A need has been identified to determine the appropriate parking standard for efficiency/studio apartments. These units consist of one common room for living, with a separate room allowed only for the bathroom. These limitations are restrictive and are significantly different from a one-bedroom apartment, warranting revisiting their parking needs.
Interest has been identified by owners of several existing hotels regarding the potential to convert their use from hotel to efficiency apartments. Redevelopment of property is highly desirable from many perspectives. Adaptive re-use to meet current market needs prior to the existing use going into disrepair is desirable; it is a luxury for a community to have such opportunities as not many communities have an economic climate that supports adaptive reuse. Utilizing existing infrastructure lowers the cost of service, providing economic and environmental benefits for the community.
The proposed use of efficiency apartments would help address New Braunfels’ need for workforce housing, while both maintaining an active use for properties and addressing the housing needs of a growing city. Discussions of the potential for redevelopment identified that our zoning ordinance does not currently have a standard for efficiency/studio apartments, only for a one-bedroom apartment (1.5 per unit). Benchmarking was performed with other Texas cities to understand their parking requirements for efficiency/studio apartments as opposed to one-bedroom apartments, and to aid in identifying the appropriate parking standard for this use.
This initiative addresses the following action items from Envision New Braunfels:
• Action 1.6: Incentivize infill development and redevelopment to take advantage of existing infrastructure.
• Action 3.1: Change zoning/land use and plating rules and create tax and permit fee incentives in under-utilized neighborhoods, nodes and corridors to encourage redevelopment.
• Action 3.16: Review and revise regulations that inadvertently inhibit creative housing options or workforce housing alternatives.
• Action 3.18: Encourage Multifamily to disperse throughout the community rather than to congregate en masse.
• Action 3.30: Encourage and incentivize workforce/affordable housing to attract new workforce entrants and young families.
• Action 3.31: Adopt policies and ordinances supportive of workforce housing, creating opportunities that make investment in workforce housing more feasible for private and nonprofit developers.
ISSUE:
To identify the number of parking spaces appropriate for efficiency/studio apartments. No parking standards currently exist for an efficiency apartment, and the requirement of 1.5 spaces used for a one-bedroom apartment is excessive when comparing the rate to that used by other Texas cities for efficiency units. Both Seguin and Schertz, two comparable Texas cities, require only 1 space per unit for efficiency/studio apartments.
FISCAL IMPACT:
N/A
Recommendation
RECOMMENDATION:
Based on research conducted, staff recommends to define efficiency/studio apartments so no ambiguity arises as to the use, and to define a parking standard of 1.1 spaces per unit be established, to provide adequate parking for both residents and visitors, as included in the draft ordinance sections provided for your review.