Bellaire council holds public hearing on proposed Urban Village Downtown zoning changes

The Bellaire City Council on Aug. 18 held a public hearing on proposed amendments to section 24-5-37 of the city’s zoning code — the Urban Village Downtown (UVD) District — after a 15-minute presentation by consultant Gary Mitchell and staff.

The proposal would implement multiple changes recommended in the city’s recently adopted comprehensive plan, including reducing the maximum planned-development building height to 53 feet (from 79 feet), lowering the height setback plane at the residential edge from 27 feet to 17 feet, replacing a zero-foot street setback with a baseline 10-foot “street-facing yard” (15 feet on major streets), requiring multifamily and mixed-use to come through a planned-development approval rather than as permitted-by-right uses, and moving hotels to specific-use-permit review. The draft also deletes a formula cap on how much multifamily floor area could appear in the district and changes the code term “single-family attached” to the already-defined “townhouse.”

City staff and consultant Gary Mitchell said some changes are intended to add public-facing green space and outdoor seating, reduce the scale of buildings abutting single-family lots north of Spruce and simplify procedural inconsistency left over from earlier district language. Mitchell said the proposed 53-foot maximum matches the height limit used for other commercial uses and is roughly…