Laramie planning commission recommends citywide changes to housing code

The Laramie Planning Commission voted unanimously Aug. 25 to recommend that the City Council approve a package of 2025 amendments to Title 15 of the Laramie Municipal Code aimed at removing barriers to housing development, staff said. Derek Taney, community and economic development director for the city of Laramie, described the package as intended “to remove barriers, increase flexibility, and improve clarity, not to grant special privileges to individual projects.” The amendments would allow modestly broader administrative flexibility by increasing allowable staff adjustments on numerical standards from 20% to 25% for items such as setbacks and parking counts. The package also would expand by-right residential uses across zoning districts to allow more multi-family housing, townhouses and live-work units, and it clarifies accessory dwelling unit (ADU) rules so that no additional parking is required for an ADU. Other changes described by staff include new parking flexibility—credits for on-street parking spaces and for covered bicycle parking—and alignment of Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) accessibility requirements with the municipal building code. Driveway minimum lengths would be reduced in some cases from 20 feet to 15 feet to support smaller lots. The amendments also revise the public-infrastructure oversizing cost-share formula so the city and developers more equitably share the cost of oversizing arterial and collector streets, and they broaden definitions for dwelling-commercial and dwelling-live-work uses to allow more building types and locations. Commissioners asked staff questions during discussion about large-vehicle parking impacts, signage for the Pilot Hill neighborhood, and how the draft distinguishes commercial uses from live-work housing. Taney and staff provided clarifications during the meeting; the transcript does not list individual commissioners’ names or a recorded roll-call vote tally. The commission’s unanimous recommendation sends the package to the Laramie City Council for consideration; the recommendation does not change the code until the council acts. For more information on the proposed amendments and future participation, staff directed viewers to the city planning web page at cityoflaramie.org/planning. The City Council will consider the Planning Commission recommendation at a later date, which staff said was to be scheduled through the council’s normal agenda process.