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Industrial developers ask council to ease setbacks and loading requirements after UDC shrank buildable footprints
Summary
Wilkerson Properties and other industrial developers asked the council to roll back aspects of the new Unified Development Code, saying larger rear setbacks and mandatory loading zones shrank the buildable area on existing industrial parcels in West Lubbock.
Developers and property owners with land in West Lubbock told the joint Planning and Zoning Commission and City Council that several new Unified Development Code requirements have substantially reduced their buildable footprints and complicated industrial development.
Gordon Wilkerson of Wilkerson Properties said the UDC "takes away our ability to develop 24% of what we could have developed previously," and asked the council to restore pre-UDC side and rear setbacks for light-industrial (LI) and industrial-park (IP) districts. "The most punitive for us is the rear setback," Wilkerson said, describing a current 100-foot rear setback that, combined with required masonry fences and alleys, leaves little room to build.
Wilkerson also urged the council to change a new mandatory loading-zone requirement. He said the current rule requires loading zones for relatively small buildings and proposed making loading zones mandatory only for buildings of 50,000 square feet or more. "A loading zone should not be mandatory until the development reaches 50,000 feet," he said, noting many users can operate with dock-high loading without separate loading yards.
Staff and developers discussed other industrial details: buffer-yard requirements, alley setbacks and compatibility with adjacent residential uses. Planning staff said infill-compatibility regulations exist for properties with development on at least two adjacent sides and that certain heavy-commercial or warehousing uses may be permitted in some commercial districts with lesser setbacks than industrial districts.
No formal vote was taken. Developers asked for further review and offered to meet with staff to refine proposed text before the June 5 Planning and Zoning Commission recommendation and the June 24 council consideration.
