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Council reviews 2024 Land Management Code text amendments; staff and council debate mixed‑use open‑space wording
Summary
City staff recommended introducing a package of annual text amendments to the Land Management Code following a post‑hearing review. Council and staff debated whether indoor amenities should count toward required open space in mixed‑use buildings and how to ensure public availability of that space.
City staff presented the post‑hearing review of the 2024 Land Management Code text amendments at the Feb. 18 work session and asked the Mayor and Council for direction on which items in the annual package to move forward for formal introduction and vote.
The package includes a range of corrections and clarifications: adjustments to standards for provisional mixed‑use buildings and the definition of qualifying open space, a correction related to camper provisions, and other technical edits. Staff said they received one comment during the written comment period, from Fred Frederick of Frederick Seibert & Associates, recommending language changes to allow some indoor amenities to count toward the required open area for mixed‑use projects.
Staff said it had drafted adjusted language to prevent inadvertent overreliance on indoor space as the entirety of required “green space.” The staff presenter explained that the intent of the recommended adjustment was to “make sure that that this is a combined indoor outdoor and not worded in such a way where it allow[s] all of that 200 square feet to be indoor.”
Council members raised concerns that allowing indoor amenities to satisfy open‑space requirements could leave neighborhoods with privately controlled amenities that the public could not use, creating an “exclusionary” outcome. One council member said the city should not accept reductions in publicly usable green space to accommodate private indoor amenities, and suggested the city treat mixed‑use retrofits differently than typical residential subdivisions.
Staff replied that the proposed provision is intended primarily for commercial districts where an existing building owner is retrofitting space for mixed‑use — for example converting an existing commercial building to have apartments above — and that the provision is not aimed at residential subdivisions. Staff cited the subdivision ordinance option for the city to accept portions of HOA open space into the public park system when appropriate, but said the city cannot force an HOA to operate a public park.
Next steps: Staff asked council whether to introduce an ordinance to adopt the package; council members indicated they were amenable to introduction but asked that the proposed language keep an outdoor component as part of the required open space and clarified that the city may pick and choose items from the package rather than adopting it wholesale.
