Englewood planning commission leans toward allowing neighborhood-serving businesses in residential zones

The Englewood Planning & Zoning Commission on July 22 held a study-session discussion on whether to allow existing commercial nonconforming properties located in residential zoning districts to change uses, expand structures or update site conditions.

Planning staff opened the discussion by defining the problem: “for tonight we're gonna be talking about non residential nonconforming uses located in the residential districts,” and explained that many small commercial buildings in R‑1 and R‑2 zones are effectively locked into their original use and face disincentives to investment.

The issue matters because staff identified roughly 14 historically established commercial properties that no longer conform to underlying residential zoning — a number staff said has likely fallen to about 12 because some sites are in process of redevelopment or conversion. Most of the buildings date from about 1910–1950, several exceed lot‑coverage standards for their base districts, and many are small quarter‑lot parcels that are difficult to redevelop as single‑family homes.

Planning staff described the current rules and three broad policy options for the commission to consider: keep the status quo and require the existing use to remain unchanged; allow selected commercial uses by tying them to an existing low‑intensity commercial district standard such as MUR‑3A; or adopt a defined list of permitted neighborhood‑serving uses (or the inverse: explicitly…