Commission recommends nonresidential parking relief downtown, defers residential rule changes

The Johnson City Regional Planning Commission on May 12 recommended approval of a text amendment to relax parking requirements for nonresidential uses in the West Walnut and B3 districts and deferred the residential portion of the amendment for additional study.

Staff said the request came at the church's request to accommodate a downtown expansion when many parcels in B3 and West Walnut cannot provide on-site parking. "This was brought forward by Christ Community Church," staff said, and the proposed nonresidential changes would allow certain downtown institutional and commercial uses relief from on-site parking standards.

Andrew Julian, a member of the church's congregation, told commissioners the planned West Walnut sanctuary is a roughly $7 million project with pledges of about $4.3 million and that the church has agreements with nearby lots but needs certainty to move forward. "This yes-or-no kind of decides the whole project," Julian said.

Commissioners discussed multifamily impacts of a proposed residential reduction (staff proposed 1 space per single/duplex unit and 0.5 space per multifamily unit downtown). One commissioner asked staff to quantify existing multifamily inventory to assess displacement risks; staff said it would return with that information. The commission voted to recommend the nonresidential text amendment be approved and to send the residential portion to a June workshop for further analysis.

Separately, the commission later approved a code waiver allowing an architectural aluminum wood-grain panel to be used as a secondary material (up to 20%) to screen an exterior stairwell for Christ Community Church, a separate application tied to the same church project.

Next steps: The nonresidential text amendment will move to city commission for public hearings; staff will prepare multifamily inventory and a workshop on the residential parking proposal before a subsequent vote.