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Planning commission backs ordinance to ease retail and hotel uses in PI zone
Summary
The Westminster Planning & Zoning Commission voted to recommend ordinance 2025‑09, a text amendment that adds hotels and certain retail/service uses to the Planned Industrial (PI) zone, raises permissible retail area from 15% to 30%, and lets the commission approve amendments to PI development plans.
The Westminster Planning & Zoning Commission on Thursday recommended that the mayor and common council approve ordinance 2025‑09, a zoning text amendment designed to ease the process for allowing limited retail and service businesses in the Planned Industrial (PI) zone.
Staff described the ordinance as a process‑focused change that would add hotels, restaurants and service stations to the list of permitted uses and raise the cap on retail/service uses from 15% to 30% of a PI property’s area. The zoning administrator said the amendment aims "to improve the process to allow local retail businesses or service shops in the PI Zone" and to let the commission review and approve development‑plan amendments for those uses instead of routing every amendment to the mayor and council.
Commissioners framed the change as incremental and practical. One commissioner noted that adding hotels updated a missing definition and that the acreage increase would give property owners and PI sites "more flexibility to have more of those retail uses." Staff and commissioners emphasized that the text amendment addresses review process rather than wholesale changes to site development standards; the zoning administrator said site development rules for the PI zone should be reviewed separately at a later date.
Attorney Kelly Schafer Miller, representing the owners of the Carroll County Commerce Center, told the commission she supports the amendment and expects additional filings related to future phases: "We are here to support [the] text amendment [and] request a favorable recommendation," she said.
A motion to recommend ordinance 2025‑09 to the mayor and common council as introduced on Oct. 13, 2025, was made, seconded and approved by voice vote. The commission’s recommendation will be forwarded to the mayor and common council for their consideration; the ordinance is a text amendment and does not itself change any existing site development plan until subsequent plan amendments are approved.
Next steps: The recommendation will be transmitted to the mayor and common council, who retain authority to adopt, modify or reject the ordinance.
