Development commission approves Homeport rezoning for North Hamilton affordable housing project

The City of Columbus Development Commission on Jan. 9, 2025, approved a rezoning request from Homeport that will allow a multiunit affordable housing development on a 1.55‑acre site on North Hamilton Road.

The commission voted to rezone the property to an urban-residential category at the applicants’ request to permit the higher-density project. The site previously had a council variance and received an OFA funding award in June of 2024, Homeport said during the hearing.

Homeport land-use representative Laura Komack told the commission the hearing represented “step 2 of the 2‑step process” the city uses for affordable housing cases, and that the project had received funding and a prior council variance. Komack also said the proposal added parking compared with the earlier plan: “Because we reduced the footprint size and went up, we were able to make an increase of that by of 20%, which was an additional 12 spaces.”

Neighbors and the Northland Community Council raised concerns about height, density and parking. Daniel Stubner, a resident who said he lives directly east of the site, called the rezoning “purely a spot zoning issue” and questioned the value of placing affordable housing in a more affluent and “up and coming” area. Dave Paul, co‑chair of the Northland Community Council Development Committee, said the committee continued to recommend disapproval because the application’s density, about 38.7 units per acre in earlier iterations, lacked an adequate transition to adjacent single‑family lots.

Commissioners pressed both sides on sidewalk connectivity and the traffic access study, which staff said was still under review at the time the staff report was finalized. Staff noted the site is within the Northland plan area and that the Northland Community Council recommended disapproval on density grounds; staff nevertheless recommended conditional approval, subject to outstanding traffic and technical comments being resolved.

Commissioners discussed the tradeoffs between parking and building height; one planner on the commission said the board has seen similar transitions along other corridors and that the project’s sidewalk connections and pedestrian access were improved in the revised materials. After discussion, the commission voted to approve the rezoning. The transcript records the motion, a roll call, and an announcement that the application was approved, though the formal vote tally was not specified in the development commission minutes included in the transcript.

The project will proceed to city council for final consideration along with any outstanding traffic‑study revisions or commitments required by city departments. Homeport said it intends the project to serve workforce and other households at targeted AMI levels, and representatives answered commissioner questions about sidewalk access to the nearby COTA route and site screening.