Update: The video of this meeting is available here, and my summary of this meeting can be found here.
As mentioned previously, the Mayor and Council and the Planning Commission will be holding a joint public work session next Monday, October 23, 2006, to discuss the permitted densities in various residential zones. The agenda for this meeting has been up for a couple of days, and the background materials just went up this afternoon. Most of the background document is reprints of the City Code as it applies to the zones in question — R-90 Cluster Development, RP-T, R-20, R-18, and R-H.
Some speculation I had done previously regarding the hints City Staff had dropped regarding R-20 seems not to have been borne out by the reality of this document. If I get the gist of it, some of these zones seem to offer densities which are generally unachievable when some of the technical requirements are accounted for. Now, Mr. Ossont had previously stated to me that the concern was that the densities in these zones were too high. I’m still not certain what this means, and I hesitate to keep hassling Mr. Ossont — who has actually been quite patient with me and helpful in his responses to my questions, but still I’m sure he has better things to do — with this issue. But, but previous discussion at Council meetings, and the way things are phrased in this document, it appears that the concern over the permitted densities is coming from the Council, and by Mr. Ossont’s response to me the concern was that the densities are too high. Perhaps this analysis is Staff’s way of telling the Council that, while it may appear from the zone’s description that the densities are too high, in fact the stated densities are unachievable so it doesn’t really matter?
In any event, I hope that where this is going is not an attempt to eliminate the remainder of the euclidian zones in the City. “Floating” zones such as MXD, CD & CBD have their place, but I would be unhappy to see the entire City of Gaithersburg redeveloped under Kentlands-style rules.
Following is a diagram of where you can find the affected zones in the City; the affected zones are in purple.
I’ve copied the “Supporting Background” from the background materials PDF. [This was an unusual PDF for the City, as it was still a bitmapped, scanned copy of the printed original, but this time they OCR’d the text themselves. However, whatever OCR tool they used ommitted all the punctuation — periods, commas, quotes, dashes, colons & semicolons and parentheses were all missing. I’ve attempted to replace them in the following quoted text, but check the original to be sure. Actually I do know that this varies from the original in the final paragraph, because I’m pretty sure they have a couple of typos in the original document.]
Following the supporting backgound is one of the graphics from the background materials, demonstrating how the technical requirements of R-20 affect the maximum density of townhouses. One aspect left unexplained, to my thinking, is how other cluster options in this zone would affect the achievable densities. For example, if the back-to-back townhouse option is used, allowing 1200 sq ft lots instead of 1800 sq ft lots. Or if smaller townhouses were built which did not occupy the maximum 40% of the lot — doing this could potentially increase the private lot share of the greenspace requirement, and some of what would have to have been common area greenspace could be used for additional townhouses. Not that, I understand, anyone would ever consider building smaller houses.
The Mayor and City Council have requested a review of the permitted densities for single family attached dwellings (townhouses) in various euclidian residential zones. Pursuant to the zoning ordinance, townhouses are permitted in the following zones: R-90 Cluster, RP-T, R-20, R-18, and R-H. For your review, we have attached copies of the zoning ordinance as it pertains to these zones.
Prior to establishing floating zones (MXD CBD and CD), the overwhelming majority of townhouse developments were done in the RP-T, R-20 and R-18 zones. As the attached chart titled “Residential Zone Comparisons” indicates, each of these zones have different permitted densities; however, the permitted density can be somewhat confusing because the zones have additional restrictions including green space requirements, setbacks, lot coverage, and lot size that limit how many townhouses can be actually constructed.
For example the R-20 zone permits 21.5 units per acre, but given the additional restrictions, staff calculates that the most townhouses that could possibly be built on a ideally shaped R-20 zone parcel with no environmental constraints would be 13.6 units per acre. To illustrate this, staff has attached the document entitled “R-20 Zoning Townhouse Density Study”
The exception to the scenario outlined above would be if a developer requested to build townhouses in the R-20 zone under the traditional neighborhood development (TND) option pursuant to Section 24-22.3 of the City Code (attached). Under the TND option, the Planning Commission could modify green space, lot size, and setback requirements that could result in coming closer to the 21.5 units per acre density. It should be noted that the TND option is not “by right” and can only be approved at the discretion of the Planning Commission.
To assist the Mayor and City Council and the Planning Commission on their review of appropriate townhouse densities, staff has analyzed portions of a number of townhouse developments in an effort to fairly compare densities. Staff deliberately did not include significant open space in the comparison. On the contrary, we simply put a box around the densest portion of the developed area of the communities. These density analyses are attached for your review. These comparisons indicate the following Hidden Creek Land Bay III (MXD) has 16.43 units per acre, Lakelands (MXD) has 14.01 units per acre, Kentlands (MXD) has 12.02 units per acre, Park Summit (R-20) has 11.79 units per acre, Warther (R-18) has 15.16 units per acre, and Fernshire Farms (RP-T) has 12.85 units per acre.
