City Beat: Missing-middle zoning designation absent from City Council bill

A rezoning ordinance presented to Springfield City Council on March 23 raised the eyebrows of some council members because of the unusual procedure by which it reached them.

As part of the citywide rezoning and remapping effort, the municipal governing body considered Council Bill 2026-072, which would update the city’s zoning map. However, the bill reached council in a split format, with certain properties removed for later consideration following review by the city’s Planning & Zoning Commission.

The bill in question would transition most city properties’ current zoning classifications to their new equivalents under the yearslong citywide remapping and rezoning process and would adopt an updated zoning map.

However, in the format by which the measure reached council, it left out 3,700 current single-family residential properties that were targeted to allow so-called missing-middle housing through a new low-density mixed neighborhood zoning designation, R-MX1.

Missing-middle housing has density that is between single-family houses and large multifamily apartment buildings and includes properties like duplexes, added accessory dwelling units and smaller townhomes.

A report by staff indicated the R-MX1 designation would be presented to council separately at a later date that was not specified.

When asked by Councilmember Monica Horton, Springfield Planning and Development Director Steve Childers said the city maintains its original recommendation for approval of a combined zoning map, rather than separating out the 3,700 potential R-MX1 properties.

“The city staff is recommending the map that it originally presented in the original bill,” he said. “It’s not making the recommendation of an amendment.”

Childers said staff provided the alternative map at the request of the city manager’s office following a request by Councilmember Derek Lee.

The Planning & Zoning Commission, Childers said, then requested a very similar map.

City Attorney Jordan Paul said it was the P&Z vice chair – Dan Scott, according to the city’s website – who requested the split map. The bill was split following a recommendation at P&Z’s Feb. 26 meeting, staff reported.

Justin Crighton, assistant director of Planning and Development, said the vice chair had questions about the proposed translation of zoning designations.

“This is the path that we take; this lets us keep the process moving,” Crighton said of the split ordinance. “I would say any alterative map other than what staff presented would need to be handled as an amendment, just like any other zoning amendment, so it would be heard by this council and decided on.”

The rezoning of properties to R-MX1 was scheduled to be considered by P&Z at its March 26 meeting, after press time.

Springfield officials held nine separate workshops on missing-middle housing from May to July 2025, according to the staff report, and Crighton noted staff received an award for its missing-middle outreach effort from the Missouri Chapter of the American Planning Association.

Childers said the alternative map without the proposed R-MX1 properties was created at the request of Lee to determine what it might look like if an amendment were to be made.

“So that wasn’t a council decision to present that to staff, but that was a one-council-member decision to present that to staff, so it ended up with Planning & Zoning, and now we have a divided bill?” Horton asked.

Childers said when P&Z was looking at the amended bill, a commissioner proposed splitting it into two separate measures, one of which would consider direct translations from current zoning districts to new zoning districts, with an independent bill to look at R-SF to R-MX1 lots.

Councilmember Brandon Jenson noted the public engagement process on citywide rezoning included 51,000 notices mailed to property owners and 10,000 views of an online interactive map. There were no public speakers during the P&Z meeting and public hearing.

Jenson pointed out that he had not seen a bill split by P&Z previously.

The new citywide land development code and map are scheduled to become effective April 6.

If excluded from a council vote through the current bill, the proposed low-density mixed residential properties would continue to be regarded as residential single family, unless a change is made at a later date, according to Crighton.

Council is scheduled to vote on the version of the map considered in a first reading March 23 – the one without the inclusion of the proposed R-MX1 properties – at its meeting April 6.

Arts funding OK’d
Council unanimously approved appropriations in just under $1.1 million in fiscal 2025 carryover funds to five departments, including the Springfield Regional Arts Council, which was added to the bill as an amendment during its first reading March 9.

Funds were approved for the following departments and activities:

• Municipal court, building project, $406,994

• City manager, Trust Edge training program, $256,000

• City Clerk, April (lodging tax) election expense, $230,000

• Springfield Regional Arts Council, operating support, $100,000

• Springfield-Greene County Park Board, Grant Beach bath house repair, $90,000

Jenson suggested the SRAC allocation be added, taking $100,000 from the proposed municipal court funding, because of elimination of a $100,000 funding stream from the Park Board budget at the end of fiscal 2025.

Although the SRAC receives funding from the existing licensing fee for hotels, motels and short-term rentals, it distributes all of that funding as grants to local arts organizations.

Leslie Forrester, SRAC executive director, said, “The question tonight isn’t whether the Arts Council does valuable work – because we do. The question is whether or not the city wants to be a partner in that work.”

She said the organization is preparing for a 50% cut in state funding in the budget that is currently being debated. She added that the arts are an economic development tool that helps with workforce attraction, and its funding supports Springfield’s competitive infrastructure.

“The arts council does the work that the city isn’t structured to do directly,” she said. “We’re the cultural resource connector across sectors, across organizations and across the region.”

West Sunshine Marketplace
In anticipation of the West Sunshine Marketplace commercial development, council approved the rezoning of 12.6 acres at 3199 and 3225 W. Sunshine St., at the corner of Moore Road, to highway commercial from a county zoning designation, as the property was recently annexed into the city.

The site of the newly approved development is across Sunshine Street from the Sunshine Towne Centre development and the new Target store and slightly east.

The rezoning application was submitted by 3225 W Sunshine LLC, registered to Brian Hoover of West Plains with the Missouri Secretary of State, and received unanimous approval from the Planning & Zoning Commission as well as a recommendation for approval from the Planning and Development staff.

At the Feb. 26 P&Z meeting, Derrick Estell, an engineer with Toth and Associates Inc., said the applicant intends to build a commercial development with quick-service retail fronting along Sunshine Street and mixed-use developments in the rear. At the March 9 council meeting, Estell said the rear of the property would be flex office space.

Estell also noted on March 9 that the developer would extend the public sewer main across Sunshine Street to the north side. Lack of sewer service has been a barrier to development on the north side of the street previously, he said.

Other action items
• Council voted to suspend an ordinance on sidewalks and driveways from city code and to enact a new article on access management standards for public rights of way, with the issue being referred to council’s Community Involvement Committee for review. The move follows concerns raised by Lee and subsequent public testimony about hardships posed to businesses by limiting driveway access.

• A planned development was approved for Tribecca Park LLC, a food hall and residential development planned for the 1000 block of South Grant Avenue on the Grant Avenue Parkway.

• A conditional use permit and rezoning to general retail from medium-density multifamily were approved to allow residential uses on first-floor frontage within a general retail district. WLM Re Holdco LLC requested the permit for the 3200 and 3300 blocks of North Glenstone Avenue.

• Rezonings were approved for 1.4 acres in the 2600 block of West College Road for Lake Country Rehabilitation Center Association, multiple designations to low-density multifamily residential with conditional overlay, for Preferred Family Healthcare Inc. to add duplexes for its clients; and for 2.2 acres at 3635 E. Olive St. to general retail from planned development for Kyon House LLC, which plans to construct a pet boarding and day care service with soundproof bedrooms, indoor and outdoor daycare yards, a pool and an indoor training center on land that is currently undeveloped.

• Council accepted the dedication of public streets and easements for a 103-acre, four-lot Hawkins Mill Subdivision in the 3200-3400 blocks of N. Vernon Road for applicant Hawkins Mill LLC, which intends to build single-family, apartment and mixed residential housing units.