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Committee recommends ED zone tweak to allow mixed-use flexibility, moves laundry to supportive use
Summary
The committee recommended approval of amendments to the Economic Development (ED) zone to allow more mixed-use flexibility on ground floors while preserving caps; the applicant and staff agreed to reclassify self-service laundry from accessory to supportive use and flagged podium parking concerns for future drafting.
Planning staff presented proposed changes to the ED (Economic Development) zone text (ZOTA 24-6) on May 7. The amendments seek to allow mixed-use buildings to count the first-floor principal/supportive uses in a way that lets residential uses above be treated differently for unit caps, while preserving overall unit limitations across ED areas.
Staff and applicant representatives discussed a technical interaction that could permit ground-floor accessory parking (podium parking) to be treated as non-supportive, effectively reducing counts for supportive uses. Staff said it was examining language to ensure first-floor uses are appropriately tethered to supportive-use totals while preserving the desired flexibility to encourage structured parking. The applicant group (represented by Brandon Gross) said the change would allow denser, more efficient housing products and requested that self-service laundry be treated as a supportive use rather than accessory; the committee approved the requested classification change and recommended the ED text amendment with that amendment.
Commissioners also discussed open-space and unit-cap details; the applicant and staff said prior problematic items had been removed from the latest draft. The committee approved the recommendation unanimously with the laundry amendment and asked staff to finalize clean drafting before public hearing.
Next steps: staff and applicant to refine draft language to resolve podium-parking counting and other drafting issues before the planning commission hearing.
