This summer, St. George city is looking to overhaul its Title 10 Zoning code affecting residential and commercial properties. Some of the changes will be fairly significant.
How does this affect you? First, it will streamline some of the real estate processes that are currently in place and make them much more efficient.
Second, it will open up new development and deal opportunities for those who take advantage of some of the new zone change improvements. Third, it will affect new aspects previously overlooked including lighting and signage.
The main goal is to re-organize some of the regulations so that they are easier to understand and more user-friendly. And for the most part, this is a good thing for all.
They are currently in the public comment phase for the next few weeks, at which point, it will then go to Planning Commission and City Council for final approval.
Here are some of the changes you can expect for 2019:
General Provisions
In addition to streamlining the basic process, the city is also looking to reduce and even eliminate most Conditional Use Permits (CUPs) in certain zones of the city, and instead, Permit with Standards (PS).
This simply means different regulations such as heights, uses, etc. We’ll explain this more below.
As well, they will also be consolidating the Plat process so that the City Council and Planning Commission now only review Preliminary Plats and staff only reviews Final Plats for compliance.
This is a big deal!
The previous process consisted of four city meetings to get a plat approved. This took up a great deal of the city’s time, staff’s time, not to mention the developer’s time and money.
A Plat is a drawing that has each lot on it, sizes of lots, streets, utilities, common areas, etc. It shows you a 2D version of what a property or development will look like.
Commercial Provisions
There are a lot of great changes happening with commercial zones.
Some of these changes include:
- Increased required height on new developments from 35′ to 50′ – additional height will require a PD.
- All signage to be approved with a sign plan
- Pedestrian circulation plan- parking and walking.
- Elimination of most of the Conditional Use Permits, only 4 left now
- Clarified outside storage area requirements.
- Cleaned up hillside development overlay zone.
- Created outdoor lighting requirements.
- Landscape standards have been cleaned up and identified.
- Updated commercial parking requirements including restaurant parking.
These changes only apply to new developments and do not affect any current buildings, unless they are planning a significant remodel.
Residential Provisions
There are a lot of great changes happening with residential zones as well.
Some of these changes include:
- Provisions on Apiaries/Beekeeping in residential zones
- Increased height restrictions from 35′ to now 40′ or higher, depending on the zone.
- More flexible on carports and side yard setbacks
- More flexible on dwelling units- only allowed in single-family residential zones, owner-occupied, parking space required, increased max height and size, etc.
- Changes to accessory structure restrictions such as pools and increased height from 15′ to 20′, and more
- Created new residential RCC zone, focused on downtown residential, allows for more creative architecture design, modified some setbacks- better in-fill.
- Modified Multi-Family zone by increasing heights from 35′ to 40′ – additional height will require a PD.
- Simplified amenity requirements based on door count- i.e. sport courts, hot tubs, health facilities, pools, bicycle storage, community libraries, etc.
They are currently in the public comment phase for the next few weeks, at which point, it will then go to city planning commission council for final approval.
Send me an email if you would like a draft copy of the proposed changes and/or the presentation containing a summary of changes being proposed.
If you have specific questions or are looking to buy, sell or lease commercial real estate, call us or check out our new website at linxcre.com.
Have a fantastic July!
Travis Parry, SIOR, CCIM
Partner – LINX Commercial Real Estate