Zoning commission renames workforce housing overlay and removes mandatory 20% affordability requirement

The Zoning Commission unanimously approved a text amendment on Feb. 3 that renames the workforce housing overlay as the "Housing Strategies Floating Zone," removes certain design sections and eliminates a prescriptive 20% affordability requirement tied to that overlay.

Staff told the commission the change is intended to make the floating zone more usable. Under the draft, the rename and revised standards would remove a 750-foot proximity limit that had been part of the previous text and would eliminate a fixed 20% affordable-unit requirement on projects proposed under the floating zone. Staff explained the expectation that any townwide inclusionary policy eventually adopted would provide the affordability standard applicable to this and other zones; until such a townwide rule exists, the floating-zone language as revised would not include a 20% requirement.

Commissioners discussed whether removing the 20% requirement would make the overlay more practical for developers and, conversely, whether it would reduce direct guarantees of affordable units tied to floating-zone approvals. Several commissioners said the 20% threshold makes the overlay difficult to use in practice and that removing it would allow more flexible mixed-residential projects to come forward. Commissioners noted that when a project is proposed under the floating zone it still requires rezoning and site-plan review and that the floating zone's public-water-and-sewer and other site requirements would remain.

A motion to adopt the text amendment as drafted in the staff memorandum dated Dec. 2, 2024, passed unanimously. Staff noted that if the townwide inclusionary policy is later adopted, that townwide rule would apply across zones including the floating zone.