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Oakdale staff previews sweeping zoning and subdivision code rewrite; proposes fewer parking minimums and a mixed‑use district
Summary
City planner Max Lozzi told the Environmental Management Commission on March 17 that the city is updating zoning and subdivision chapters to simplify rules, reduce parking minimums, add a mixed‑use district and clarify tree‑preservation standards, with a draft expected for legal review in April and possible adoption in June 2025.
City staff presented a comprehensive rewrite of Oakdale’s zoning and subdivision code to the Environmental Management Commission on March 17, outlining proposed changes intended to modernize the code, align it with recent city plans and reduce regulatory complexity.
Max Lozzi, city planning staff, said the city hired HKGi to produce a new draft and is concentrating on zoning districts, planned unit development (PUD) rules, building standards, parking, landscaping and tree preservation. “Our main goal is to make it easier to use and modernize the zoning code,” Lozzi said.
Lozzi described several substantive proposals: consolidate near‑duplicate residential districts (R2 and R3) into a single low‑density district; allow new housing types such as duplexes, townhouses and courtyard cottages in certain districts; create a mixed‑use district to encourage walkable combinations of housing and commerce; and merge underused commercial districts into an employment zoning category.
On parking, Lozzi said the city is moving to simplify and reduce minimum parking requirements across many uses. He noted that some large retail and entertainment sites are consistently over‑parked and that calculating parking by employee counts for industrial uses is increasingly unreliable. “We’re looking at reducing minimum space counts across the board, making it so that less pavement overall is required for each development,” he said.
Planned unit developments account for about 29 percent of Oakdale’s land, Lozzi said, and many older PUDs lack clear standards. The rewrite would tighten PUD rules so property owners and administrators can more readily determine what is allowed.
On trees and landscaping, Lozzi said the current code has overlapping landscaping sections and unclear triggers for tree‑preservation requirements (grading, building and development scenarios). The proposal would clarify those triggers, require replacement trees on the same lot or development where feasible, allow fee‑in‑lieu or park mitigation as alternatives, and require replacement when a major portion of trees on an undeveloped parcel are removed. “We are going to put in something that would allow it to be put in a nearby park or collect a fee in lieu if it’s last case scenario,” Lozzi said.
Lozzi said the city is considering converting parcel‑based wetland zoning to a wetland overlay and noted that Minnesota state wetland laws offer stronger protections than the city’s older ordinance. “Minnesota state wetland laws are actually more aggressive than our wetland district,” he said; protections would remain whether the city uses an overlay or other approach.
Timeline and next steps: Lozzi said the first legal draft will go to the city for review in mid‑April to mid‑May, with public hearings and commission review to follow and an adoption target of June 2025. The project will include a public map tool so residents can click parcels and see proposed zoning changes.
Commissioners asked clarifying questions about how wetland overlays would interact with existing rules, how tree replacement would be measured and whether Tanner’s Lake redevelopment could use the new mixed‑use district. Lozzi said Tanner’s Lake would be a strong candidate for mixed‑use zoning once the new text is adopted.
Hannah Dunn, community development staff liaison, and commissioners thanked staff for the overview and requested copies of the draft and map tool when available.
