City Beat: City a step closer to revision of its land-use code

A raft of changes to the city’s zoning code – referred to as the Community Land Development Code – were presented to Springfield City Council at its meeting March 10.

A public hearing was held on two sets of revisions, with votes scheduled for March 24.

Chris Brewster of Kansas City-based design firm Multistudio, hired by the city to complete the update, addressed council to outline some of the priorities of the effort.

Brewster said three decades is a long time between comprehensive code updates.

“Over time, you amend it; it becomes disjointed and a little harder to work with,” he said. “It’s also dated in terms of some of the policies – it doesn’t reflect Forward SGF and has some things that aren’t necessarily considered best practices, in terms of planning.”

He explained that the 1995 version is a use-based code – based purely on land use, without close attention to development and design elements. In contrast, the updated code is grounded in place types, which favor multiuse development and design elements.

He said another target of the code shift was to prepare the city for a future of more infill – meaning building on available or vacant lots within the city – and strategic development, as the Forward SGF 20-year comprehensive plan calls for.

Brewster said one of the main themes Forward SGF addresses is neighborhood design, with a goal of protecting the character of its unique neighborhoods while providing diverse housing types. Other themes are providing multimodal and walkable streets, as well as beautification, aesthetic improvements and connecting to nature through trails and open spaces.

“A lot of those themes were very strong in the plan of making more context-based decisions and solutions,” he said.

He added that quality of place was the driving goal of Forward SGF and informed nearly every decision in the code update.

The place-type approach is one main consideration of the plan, which also contemplates design elements of streets and public spaces.

Feedback from council included suggestions and an acknowledgement of the size of the undertaking.Councilmember Monica Horton noted a fiscal impact analysis process is part of the regulatory plan, and requested an explanation.

Brewster said one rationale is to strengthen and emphasize why some mixed-use areas of Forward SGF are important.

“Some of the more compact, mixed-use areas actually are quite high returning in investment when you think of how much land they’re using and how much infrastructure they’re using,” he said. “A large retail area with large parking lots might look big in terms of numbers and revenue, but it’s also taking up a lot of land and infrastructure.”

He noted even smaller projects can produce a big return.

He also said investing in higher-quality design pays dividends. An example would be adding street trees to a corridor. There’s an aesthetic component, he said, but they also provide stormwater value that can’t be overlooked.

Brewster also responded to Horton’s request for an explanation of mixed residential districts, labeled RMX in the code. These provide so-called missing middle housing, ranging from duplexes to small-scale apartment buildings that can fit on a residential lot.

“They would complement each other and we would see much more strategic rezonings using those districts,” he said.

Horton also asked for an explanation of changes to public hearings and neighborhood meetings.

Brewster said public hearings would not change because they are required by statute.

For neighborhood meetings, the update would not change when they are triggered, but they would set better expectations for how, why and when in the process they occur.

“As far as making changes to getting rid of them to streamline, that is not what is occurring,” Brewster said.

He added that conditional use permit processes will be streamlined and will be decided by P&Z, rather than coming before council.

“When there’s a two-tiered public hearing, you’re often going through the same process twice,” he said, adding council could hear appeals when there is a need for one.

The city invested $590,828 for consultants – Multistudio and Asheville, North Carolina-based Urban3 – to update the code, according to past Springfield Business Journal reporting.

Proposed revisions to the code may be viewed on the Forward SGF website maintained by the city at ForwardSGF.com/initiative3.

Lane-splitting ordinance
Council heard the first reading of an ordinance that would eliminate the practice of lane-splitting, which occurs when a motorcycle, bicycle or micromobility device drives between vehicles in two marked lanes, sometimes in moving traffic.

Springfield Police Chief Paul Williams characterized the practice as dangerous, and he noted that most people erroneously believe it is already illegal.

Councilmember Brandon Jenson asked the chief if enforcement would be difficult.

“Yes, it’s a challenge, but that doesn’t mean we don’t – it doesn’t mean we won’t,” Williams said, adding that if the practice is observed, an officer would be able to execute a traffic stop.

Council will vote on the measure at its March 24 meeting.

Other action items
• Council held first reading of a bill to accept $2 million from BNSF Railway Corp. to raise the Jefferson Avenue Footbridge height by about 3 feet, with a vote to follow March 24. If it passes, the city will issue a notice to proceed for construction on April 7. The move will extend the project by three months and will cost the city an additional $225,000, but that money is within the contingency fund already budgeted for the project.

• Another 429 acres are proposed for annexation in council’s effort to expand and regularize the city’s boundaries. The property, all city owned but currently outside of Springfield proper, includes 74 acres of buffer property for the Southwest Wastewater Treatment Plant, just north of James River Freeway; 168 acres that house the Rutledge-Wilson Farm Park; and 187 acres plus right of way to the north of the Springfield-Branson National Airport. The vote is scheduled for March 24.

• A $782,000 allocation was approved to fund equipment needs for the Police Department, using funds typically returned to the city from unused salary and benefit dollars from the department, which has a long-term staffing shortage of 50-plus officers. A $289,000 Bearcat armored vehicle is the top planned expenditure, followed 45 in-car mobile data terminals at $135,000. Ballistic shields and explosive panels, cameras, safety barriers and office chairs are also on the expenditure list.

• Adjustments to fees for city services were approved. Of 83 fees evaluated, 60 were increased, five were reduced and 18 were left unchanged. The move, an annual one that rotates through all city departments on a three-year basis, is estimated to generate $1.4 million in additional revenue. The highest increase is to sanitary landfill tipping fees, raised by 8.5%. The two-thirds of departments that were not evaluated this year will have fees increased by 3%, in line with the consumer price index increase in 2024.

• A $62,000 grant was accepted for the Police Department from the Missouri Department of Transportation. The Motor Carrier Safety Assistance Grant supports programs to reduce crashes and hazardous material incidents involving commercial vehicles. Williams said officers will receive training to inspect commercial vehicles that traverse the city.

• Council accepted a low bid from Springfield’s Hartman & Co. Inc. of $3.3 million for construction of Eastgate Avenue roadway improvements from Division Street to LeCompte Road, in the area of Springfield Underground. Five bids were received.

• Council will vote March 24 on two expenditures for the Southwest Wastewater Treatment Plant: $352,000 for process enhancements and $990,000 for centrifuge replacement. The funds would come from the Clean Water Fund.

• For the Northwest Wastewater Treatment Plant, a $707,000 expenditure is proposed to address perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, chemicals, a class of pollutants that are slow to break down and that pose danger to human health and the environment. Council will vote at its next meeting on using Clean Water Fund dollars for a program that would collect PFAS chemicals as foam to divert them from streams. At present, there is no good answer for what to do with the trapped PFAS chemicals, city staff reported – options are either stockpiling it or putting it back into the landfill where it originated, but it would be diverted from waterways in the process.