On Thursday February 27th, Kirkwood City Council will hold a public hearing on the proposed changes to our zoning code. Those changes cover four-ish main areas: Single-family lot coverage, multi-family density and height, signage, and bicycle parking. Lots of things will be tweaked but it appears that very little will change.
The maximum height for [B-2 zoned, which is most] buildings is determined on two axises: Mixed use vs. Single use and whether said building falls on a “Phase 1” street or a “Phase 2” street. A Phase 1 street is one within a five minute walking radius of the train station while a phase 2 street falls outside that circle. Some of these changes are logical. Under the new rule, mixed use developments, those with ground floor retail, are allowed to be taller than mixed use buildings. Mixed-use buildings tend to better for the urban environment than housing-only buildings for the simple fact that that ground floor retail tends to do a better job of activating the street-front as well as giving residents more restaurants and shops to patronize.
But others are super backwards, and super dumb. Under these new regulations mixed-use buildings in the heart of downtown —the kind we’re supposed to be encouraging!— will be shorter than those at its periphery. This is like if all of Manhattan’s buildings were one and two stories tall and New Jersey, The Bronx and Brooklyn had all the skyscrapers surrounding it. It is the exact opposite of what makes sense. Buildings are taller where demand for real estate is highest. Demand is highest in the areas immediately surrounding amenities people want access too.
And this is not a small area. We’re talkin’ Clay to Taylor, and Adams to Monroe, essentially the entirety of downtown. Let’s end on a positive note though: The rule stipulating a maximum number of units per floor will be eliminated. Thank G.
Accessory Dwelling Units
Perhaps the most disappointing change however, comes not to building height but rather to the rules and regulations around accessory dwelling units (ADUs). ADUs, also known as mother-in-law suites or granny flats, are any secondary residence on a piece of property. Usually they have a separate entrance from the principal dwelling unit (PDU), and take the form of either an apartment above the garage or a cottage in the backyard. They are especially feasible at homes with alley access. ADUs are an easy way to add soft housing density and residents of Kirkwood overwhelmingly approve of it being allowed.
So Kirkwood approved it! In theory… But by attaching enough strings, city council and P&Z ensured that essentially no new ADU’s will be built. The problems are three fold:
1) Owner Occupied:
Requiring that the owner of the property live in the PDU in order for an ADU to be permitted might sound like a reasonable requirement but in practice it is a policy that really just makes it much harder to get a loan to build the ADU in the first place. When banks issue loans for home improvements they consider whether or not that improvement will help the home’s value. This is so that if you default on your payments and the bank takes the home at least the loan they issued wasn’t wasted, it was instead an investment in an asset they now own. Whether an ADU meets that definition is largely dependent on whether or not the owner of the property is required to live there. If a bank takes ownership of a house the bank itself will not be living on site. Thus they are not allowed to rent the ADU thus there is no return on their investment thus you get a shittier loan or no loan at all.
2) 15,000 sqft Minimum Lot Size:
If you would like to build an ADU you must live on at least 15,000 sqft of land. That stipulation disqualifies basically all of historic Kirkwood that is arranged in a street grid with smaller plots and does disqualify all homes that have alley access. What’s left are homes at the peripheries of Kirkwood: those in less walkable places with lower property values anyway. In other words, this policy neuters any ability for ADUs to reduce the pressure of rising demand/home costs.
3) Set Backs:
All set back regulations must still be observed. Which I guess was to be expected. But say you have an existing garage and you’re looking to add an ADU above it. If the garage doesn’t meet the designated setback requirement you would have to tear the whole thing down and re-build it from scratch so that it complies. I don’t think many people are taking that offer.
Other Changes
Bicycle parking will be also be mandated for any new development under the new rules. While the original version of the code read that developments along Manchester and Kirkwood Road would be exempt from this requirement because, in the words of one councilor we don’t want cyclists on our busiest roads, luckily that exemption was struck from the final version. The proliferation of bike racks in Kirkwood is cool and good. Nice work.
FAR and side yard setbacks have been amended. This is theoretically to stem the amount of water that runs off the roof of one large house directly into the basement of another and the proliferation of McMansions on too small of lots . That’s a good goal and the amendment is fine I guess as it only applies to single family residential and. I wish it only applied to large and medium lots though. Housing closer together is good for housing density. And you might have heard this before but housing density is good.