Planning staff begins Phase 2 of zoning rewrite and expands student outreach program

City planning staff said the city’s Unified Development Ordinance rewrite has moved into the consultant-led “collaboration phase,” where officials will test possible new zoning-district boundaries and workshop commercial corridors with a steering committee and the public.

The discussion matters because the UDO sets the city’s zoning districts and development rules; changes could alter where housing, commercial uses and public amenities are allowed. Planning staff said the next steps will include steering-committee work on district maps and community workshops to get broader feedback before drafting code language for commercial areas such as the Airway Whitman Corridor.

“Nya Holt: We are in the — what our consultant calls the collaboration phase,” Planning staff member Nya Holt said, adding that the initial work will focus on how zoning-district boundaries might be redrawn and how commercial districts could be refined. “This is really where we’re diving into our code, seeing what can be kept, what can be, really refined.”

Holt told the Planning Commission the process will identify sections of the current code that should be replaced and other sections that can be revised. Steering-committee meetings will precede neighborhood workshops, she said, and staff will return to the commission with updates because the commission will later vote on any code changes.

Alongside the UDO work, Holt described an outreach program called “It’s Your City, It’s Your World” that has taken planning exercises into local elementary schools and community events. Volunteers and a group from the teachers academy helped lead a classroom activity asking students to place uses on a map of the city and to learn basic planning concepts such as form and walkability.

“We had a student who put a factory next to a store so that the factory, if they ran out of — a store ran out of candy, they would be able to restock. So it makes sense. That’s what zoning is,” Holt said.

Holt said the program has held one workshop at Beverly Gardens, will visit all four elementary schools and planned a session at Brentwood on March 7. She asked commission members and volunteers to engage; staff said the input will inform land-use tables in the zoning rewrite.

The city manager (unnamed in the meeting transcript) thanked Holt and planning staff for outreach and partnerships with the school district and volunteers, saying the program reflects well on the city’s ability to engage residents. Holt also noted staff had prepared a small planning commission budget to purchase polos for commissioners attending the Miami Valley Planning Conference.

Staff did not propose any formal action or vote on the UDO at this meeting; commissioners received the update and were asked to expect further engagement and future decisions.

The commission heard no public comments on this topic during the meeting.