Impact
WARD: Citywide
COMMITTEE: Community Development
$ IMPACT: N/A
Title
Public Hearing - Mixed Use District Update to the Zoning Ordinance - City of Smyrna
Body
ISSUE: The City of Smyrna recently completed several new planning studies and plans throughout the city. Two of those plans were the Spring Road LCI Study and the 2040 Comprehensive Plan. The Spring Road LCI Study recommended amending the City’s Comprehensive Plan to add a Regional Activity Center land use designation to accommodate the intensive development envisioned in the study for Spring Road near Cobb Parkway. The development envisioned for the Regional Activity Center land use designation was significantly more dense and intense than was previously allowed by the City’s Comprehensive Plan. In addition, the development along Spring Road will include a mixture of uses (residential and commercial) to reach the densities established in the LCI Study. After the adoption of the Spring Road LCI Study, the City completed its 2040 Comprehensive Plan. As part of the 2040 Comprehensive Plan, the city add the Regional Activity Center as a future land use designation as recommended by the Spring Road LCI Study. The Future Land Use Plan was amended to reflect the area on the eastern end of Spring Road as Regional Activity Center. Therefore, the Community Development Department is proposing to amend the purpose and intent section of the Mixed Use zoning district to expand the district’s use to the area designated as Regional Activity Center on the Future Land Use Plan.
In addition to expanding the purpose and intent section, Community Development is proposing some typing and grammatical errors, as well as a few changes to improve sentence structure.
BACKGROUND: The Community Development Department recently reviewed Section 720 - Mixed Use District against the recently adopted 2040 Comprehensive Plan and Spring Road LCI Study. The intent of the section was too narrow of a scope and limits the Mixed Use zoning district to use within the Central Business District, Mixed Use and Community Activity Center future land use designations on the 2014 Future Land Use Plan. The Zoning Ordinance amendment was heard by the Planning and Zoning Board on August 13, 2018. It was recommended for approval by a vote of 6-0.
RECOMMENDATION/REQUESTED ACTION: Community Development has reviewed the City’s Zoning Ordinance with respect to the Mixed Use zoning district and has made several code amendments. The proposed amendments are:
1) Additional verbiage to the purpose and intent section of the Mixed Use zoning district to expand its use to the Regional Activity Center on the Future Land Use Plan; and
2) Fixing typing and grammatical errors throughout.
Community Development recommends approval of the following code amendment to Section 720 of the City’s Zoning Ordinance.