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City staff urge code update, warn of new state rules on manufactured housing and other land-use items
Summary
Consultants recommended a code diagnostic and a likely consultant-led code rewrite to implement the comprehensive plan. Presenters summarized recent Texas legislative changes that affect local zoning authority, manufactured-home rules, and occupancy regulations; many bills tracked by staff did not apply to Commerce or did not pass.
Commerce — City planning consultants and staff at a June 3 workshop urged the council to pursue a focused zoning and subdivision code update and reviewed recent state legislative changes that affect local land-use rules.
David Jones of Freese and Nichols, who led the workshop—s code discussion, said a code diagnostic is the first step to identify conflicts between the draft comprehensive plan and the city—s existing development regulations. He described the diagnostic as an analysis that produces a prioritized —treatment plan— of code changes and recommended conducting zoning and subdivision updates together where possible to avoid conflicts between public improvements and private development standards.
Consultants and staff recommended hiring an outside consultant to lead the code rewrite. City staff said the last meaningful review of the city—s zoning and subdivision ordinances was in February 2009; consultants estimated a full code update would likely take roughly nine to 12 months and could be labor intensive for city staff.
The workshop included a review of recent state legislation. Presenters discussed Senate Bill 840 (SB 840), which consultants said aimed to expand residential options in commercial districts; SB 15, which was discussed in the workshop as a larger-law context but whose numeric details only apply to larger cities; and state changes involving HUD-code manufactured housing. The consultant described the adopted manufactured-housing change as requiring cities to allow HUD-code manufactured homes in at least one existing residential district rather than only inside manufactured-home parks. Presenters said that change does not require allowing manufactured housing in every residential district.
Staff also briefed the council on occupancy regulation authority. A bill discussed during the session would have limited cities— ability to regulate unrelated-person occupancy limits in single-family zones; an amendment adopted on the House/Senate floor narrowed the bill so it applies only to certain home-rule cities with universities that enroll more than 20,000 students — a threshold Commerce does not meet. Consultants said Commerce may continue to regulate occupancy consistent with the community—s existing standard (as discussed in the workshop).
Presenters noted other bills tracked during the legislative session did not pass or did not apply to small cities. They warned of a recurring legislative theme: proposed changes that would reduce or remove governmental immunity under the Texas Tort Claims Act for certain local actions. Consultants urged the city to use a consultant and a thorough diagnostic so the city does not miss statutory changes that could expose it to increased litigation risk.
No formal motions or votes were taken during the workshop. Consultants recommended the council consider consultant-led code work and further legislative debriefings at future meetings.
