Planning Commission holds first public hearing on major zoning-code rewrite; Milestone/Alameda rezoning draws neighborhood opposition

Lakewood planners opened the first public hearing on a major rewrite of the city’s zoning ordinance on April 23, presenting draft changes and taking several hours of public comment on topics ranging from animal keeping and house-size limits to parking, transit access and the proposed remapping of specific parcels.

Staff presentation and key proposals

Travis Parker, Chief of Sustainability, Community Development and Planning, told the commission staff does not intend to remove permissions for horses and large animals and that an apparent omission in the draft (that would have left some new residential zone language without animal allowances) will be corrected. Parker said the draft zoning creates three new residential “low-form” districts (rural, suburban, urban) with different maximum new-building sizes and noted staff’s intention to carry forward existing livestock rights in the new code.

Staff also reviewed a set of properties identified for remapping because existing zoning is inconsistent with current market and physical conditions; examples discussed include parcels at Second and Union; several corridors along Colfax; small parcels boxed in by multifamily zoning at Ninth and Tenth and Carr; Pierce and Jewell; and the large, long-disputed Alameda/Kipling property owned by Milestone Apartment Group. For the Milestone site staff described the existing mix of ME (mixed employment) and R2 zoning and said the current draft maps that R2 portion as MRU (mixed-residential urban), but that a lower-density residential designation…