Commission debates AMPD changes aimed at making affordable development more feasible

Staff opened a second work session on AMPD and single-room-occupancy (SRO) amendments and summarized Zions Public Finance findings about feasibility. Zions presented three development scenarios and concluded the AMPD can attract affordable units under constrained unit sizes and AMI targets, but larger unit sizes or lower AMI targets create funding gaps without additional subsidies. Staff proposed a suite of changes: clarifying RUE (residential unit equivalent) calculations, allowing attainable units in the AMPD framework, lowering the AMPD minimum threshold from 20,000 to 10,000 square feet (or from 10 to 5 RUEs), streamlining AMPD/CUP processes, and establishing a nondiscretionary parking-reduction pathway tied to objective criteria.