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Commission approves Title 20 amendments to C-5 downtown code to encourage housing and clarify uses
Summary
The commission approved targeted amendments to the C‑5 zoning district in downtown El Paso to clarify permitted neighborhood commercial uses, support residential development and remove outdated supplemental regulations.
The City Planning Commission on March 26 recommended approval of targeted amendments to Title 20 zoning rules for the C-5 commercial district in downtown and adjacent Uptown areas.
Planning staff and the city’s director of economic and international development presented the changes as a focused update to align the zoning code with the downtown housing and economic strategies in the city’s plans and to remove outdated or incompatible supplemental regulations. Staff explained the amendments are limited to the redlined C-5 district on the downtown map and do not rezone properties; rather, they change which uses are permitted or how certain uses are regulated under C-5.
Why it matters: The amendments are intended to make it easier to site housing-supporting uses and neighborhood retail in downtown, to reduce regulatory confusion that can deter investments and to create clearer pathways for adaptive reuse of historic buildings. Staff emphasized the changes are part of a phased code update tied to the city’s housing goals for downtown.
Key changes
- Remove heavy industrial and highly incompatible uses from the C-5 district (for example, shaft mining, outdoor shooting ranges, large-scale industrial uses inappropriate for an urban core). - Clarify and permit childcare facilities of Type 3 in the district (other childcare types already permitted elsewhere in C-5); note that child-care licensing and state oversight remain separate. - Add a defined "corner store" retail use with associated parking and design standards to support neighborhood-serving retail at street level. - Allow certain self-storage uses only with requirements that keep first-floor street activity (office or commercial activation) and limit the percentage of a building devoted to storage; support adaptive reuse conversions of existing structures. - Remove outdated supplemental regulations that imposed employee-count limits or other unenforceable rules on neighborhood uses.
Implementation and incentives
Economic and international development staff described an existing grant pilot program that has supported downtown housing projects (one previously approved grant included $4 million in upfront assistance for a project that restored a historic building and added 99 units). Staff also described public-facility-corporation mechanisms the city may use to purchase and assemble properties to facilitate housing projects. Planning staff said any property-specific changes would still follow standard rezoning or permitting processes; the amendments are intended to make appropriate uses clearer and more streamlined.
Quotes
"We want to make it very apparent right up front that that's something that you're allowed to do and not have to go through additional rounds of review," Karina Brasgala, director of Economic and International Development, said of the proposed C-5 clarifications.
Ending
The commission voted to forward the Title 20 amendments for City Council consideration. Staff said the update is the first of several code-cleanup and modernization phases to support downtown housing and mixed uses; additional amendments will address accessory dwelling units, parking and other code sections in subsequent phases.
