Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Zoning Text Amendment topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Planning commission backs Article 5 zoning cleanup to clarify renovation rules and adopt state parking changes
Summary
The Norfolk City Planning Commission voted to recommend a phase‑1 amendment to Article 5 of the zoning ordinance to clarify development standards for renovations, relocate screening rules, and implement state parking reductions near transit. Staff said the change mainly reorganizes requirements to ease reuse of existing buildings.
The Norfolk City Planning Commission on July 20 recommended approval of a phase‑one zoning text amendment to Article 5 that reorganizes development standards for renovations, additions and site improvements.
Planning staffer Jeremy told commissioners the package is primarily a cleanup: it consolidates rules for renovations and site work that now exist in multiple places in the code and updates several provisions to reflect changes in state law. "Most of what we're doing is taking requirements that exist elsewhere and putting them into one place," Jeremy said, adding that the goal is to make the ordinance more legible and functional while retaining core protections such as setbacks, height limits and floodplain standards. Staff said the amendment also clarifies how to treat nonconforming structures when property owners invest in improvements.
A notable element implements a state law reduction in residential parking minimums near transit. Jeremy said the city will map the transit‑adjacent areas and apply the reduced parking thresholds citywide where appropriate; for single‑family dwellings the state caps off‑street parking at one space and for multifamily units the cap can fall to 0.5 spaces per unit in some mapped areas. "The reduction is... for single family, currently we require two off‑street parking spaces; state code caps that at one for new single‑family dwellings," Jeremy said.
Commissioners asked clarifying questions and moved to recommend the amendment to City Council. The motion passed on a recorded voice vote. The planning department said subsequent phases will address the resilience quotient and other reorganizations of the zoning code.
