Staff proposes more flexible secondary-use rules for PDH and PDC districts

DPD staff presented proposed amendments to use standards in plan-development housing (PDH) and plan-development commercial (PDC) districts designed to improve clarity and administration.

For PDH districts, staff recommended retaining the existing restriction that limits commercial land area (including parking) relative to the number of dwelling units but easing certain office-specific restrictions they consider unnecessary. For PDC districts, staff said the current principal-use-based formula (which limits residential and other secondary uses by reference to principal uses) is hard to interpret and enforce; staff proposed instead a simpler standard that would permit up to 75% of the total development to be residential or other secondary uses, a change staff said better matches recent PDC approvals (staff noted the Board has modified these provisions in over 60% of cases in the past decade).

Separately, staff recommended tightening submission requirements for partial final-development-plan amendments by adding a mandatory meets-and-bounds legal description (in addition to bearings and distances) to reduce instances where applicants refuse to provide information that staff customarily requests but cannot require under current ordinance language.

The committee thanked staff for the background paper and indicated they would "move forward on this" item. Staff will continue outreach and incorporate committee feedback into draft ordinance language for future review.