Missing-middle zoning designation absent from council bill

A rezoning ordinance presented to Springfield City Council last night 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 is scheduled to be considered by P&Z at its March 26 meeting, according to the agenda posted online by the city.

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 last night – the one without the inclusion of the proposed R-MX1 properties – at its meeting April 6.