The Salt Lake City Council got a preview Tuesday of what the city’s new, consolidated mixed-use zoning code would look like, complete with tweaks in code that could allow for taller buildings and fewer approvals needed before construction.
The consolidation would take 26 mixed-use and commercial zones and turn it into six zones. Krissy Gilmore, a planning manager for the city, said the zoning consolidation would make the code more manageable for city planning staff and more digestible for the public.
But she said the zoning consolidation could also bring more tangible public benefits for future developments.
“In some mixed-use zones, there will be an increase in building height or reduction in setback requirements compared to current regulations,” Gilmore told the council. She later added that heights would generally remain the same, but the changes tend toward allowing height increases rather than reductions.
Tuesday’s briefing was the result of a year of work by Salt Lake City Planners who kicked off the effort to move toward a streamlined, form-based zoning code for the city’s mixed-use and commercial zones.
The proposed mixed-use zones each carry a number, and that number is typically the maximum number of floors a building in that zone can have. For example, in MU-5, buildings can have a maximum of five floors. Zones were grouped primarily by height to retain existing property rights.
Gilmore also explained that some zones require a design review past a certain height. MU-3, for example, has a maximum height of 45 feet, and any proposed building taller than 35 feet must be reviewed by the city. In MU-11, a design review is required for any proposed structure taller than 85 feet. The Salt Lake City Planning Commission conducts design reviews for approval.
Despite the need to still review certain projects, Gilmore said one goal of the proposed zoning consolidation is to reduce the need for the Planning Commission to review projects.
For example, the Planning Commission currently must screen and approve development proposals that include non-street facing housing units — a common hangup for townhome projects. Gilmore said Tuesday that under the zoning overhaul, those units would no longer require city approval in any MU zone.
“We are hopeful that the proposed regulations will support more by-right development and remove barriers to existing mixed-use development,” Gilmore said.
The consolidation also tries to make setbacks consistent across all zones, though there are some exceptions, Gilmore said. The biggest setbacks would be the lowest density zones — MU-2 and MU-3, which would typically be used for housing — and the setbacks would serve as yard space.
Details on the zoning code overhaul are available online. The city has also released an interactive map of the proposed codes outlining where the zones could take effect in Salt Lake City.
City Council members did not vote on the proposed zoning overhaul Tuesday. The council will soon be accepting public comments on the zoning overhaul, and a potential vote on the zoning changes could happen as soon as March 18.
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