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Commission backs missing-middle amendment in Tampa Heights over staff objection
Summary
Commission recommended TACPA 24-09 (Residential 10 → Residential 20 in Tampa Heights) consistent with the comp plan, citing neighborhood context and housing affordability; staff and City of Tampa planning had opposed the change.
The planning commission voted to recommend TACPA 24-09 consistent with the comprehensive plan, approving a small-scale future-land-use change in Tampa Heights that would allow higher residential density on a 0.11-acre site.
Planning staff said the request was inconsistent because it would create an isolated pocket of Residential 20 within a single-family Residential 10 area and does not provide the corridor transition the current plan envisions. "It is inconsistent. It is not compatible with the surrounding area," staff said, noting the site is not along a planned high-density corridor.
Applicant and neighborhood resident Matt Sink, who said he has lived in Tampa Heights for more than 11 years, argued the neighborhood already contains legal nonconforming duplexes, triplexes and other multifamily forms and that the requested duplex would deliver "missing middle" housing to keep residents from being priced out. "Tampa Heights has become increasingly expensive...the only way that I'm trying to help that is by doing duplex product," Sink said.
Commissioners debated whether the commission could reasonably make a consistency finding that departs from staff; after policy citations were negotiated on the record, the motion to find TACPA 24-09 consistent (citing objectives 1.2, 1.2.0.8 and 1.2.0.3) passed and will be forwarded as the commissionrecommendation to the City Council for final action.
