Ozark considers multifamily housing design standards

Randall Whitman: Having baseline design standards can alleviate some unknowns.

To cut down on stress and friction in the community while better accommodating and integrating diverse housing types, the city of Ozark is looking to develop standards specific to multifamily development.

Ozark Community Development Director Randall Whitman made a presentation to the city’s Planning & Zoning Commission Jan. 22 about code changes that would apply to new development as more and more multifamily is coming online.

One addition to the Ozark landscape that is current under construction is the 226-acre Marabella development, a mixed-use project that was three years in the making before its annexation, rezoning and plat approval were given the nod by the Ozark Board of Aldermen in November 2025.

Whitman told the Ozark P&Z members that Marabella includes a lot of the standards that are being eyed for multifamily development code amendments.

“That’s a great motivation to see how it works out,” Whitman said.

In an interview, Whitman indicated the code amendments related to multifamily design standards are occurring in the background as his staff addresses some other city priorities.

“We are slow to get our design standards drafted and have prioritized other code amendments ahead of this, but we are anxious to deliver a draft to the [P&Z] commission, hopefully in March,” he said.

Nevertheless, they are on the way to address development in 360-plus acres of property currently zoned either R-3 or R-4 in the city, which Whitman said equates to 4.5% of Ozark.

“Right now, there are several projects in one phase or another of the development process, and at any given time and for different circumstances, progress can come to a crawl or stop entirely,” he said.

Whitman told P&Z that until the multifamily design standards are in place, Ozark must rely on the good grace of developers with an eye on market demands.

“The city of Ozark wants to support a variety of residential development projects,” he said. “At the same time, the city wants to honor concerns from citizens – neighbors – in addition to honoring the guidance from the city’s comprehensive plan.”

That can be tricky, according to Whitman.

“Sometimes these competing interests create contentious hearings, community stress and friction where different land uses, densities and building types and quality collide, all complicating the administration and planning side of the development process,” he said.

Whitman said establishing baseline design standards for the site, buildings and overall development can alleviate unknowns to establish a level playing field for all projects.

“This will also provide elected officials, investors and citizens with a fair degree of certainty or predictability as to what will be expected and what will be constructed,” he said.

Predictability is important in development, according to the Urban Land Institute’s just-released 2026 Emerging Trends in Real Estate study for southwest Missouri in 2026. In the study, 37.5% of those surveyed identified community and political opposition as the biggest bottleneck faced by developers, followed by entitlements and permitting in 31.3%. An established set of standards, like the ones Ozark is designing, could augment certainty and predictability to create a smoother approval process.

In other words, as Whitman told the Ozark P&Z, design standards can reduce opportunities for friction.

“Friction can occur when more intense uses, building scale or other site elements collide with ones that are less intense on an adjacent property or neighborhood,” he said in the interview. “Quality design and placemaking can help to manage or mitigate the friction and impact these elements have on the periphery.”

Whitman asked P&Z members to provide feedback via a design preference survey by the first week of January, and he said he is already getting a feel for the appetite of the majority.

“Thus far, the feedback we’ve gotten suggests everything is important, but there is a theme, in that planning commissioners have expressed a desire to see housing projects with unique design elements, and for each building within a project to be unique from building to building,” he said.

Additionally, he said, they have expressed a desire to see quality and variation in materials, landscaping and placement of site elements, with all of these factors to be elevated through the adoption of design standards.

During the P&Z meeting, Whitman introduced the concept of missing middle housing – something that has been a focus in other communities, including Springfield. As he explained, missing middle housing scales up in density from single-family housing but is below a large multifamily apartment building; it often takes the form of duplexes, multiplexes, townhouses or accessory dwelling units.

Whitman told P&Z members that a goal is to provide more diverse housing options for young people transitioning from high school or college into apartments or smaller houses or for older people who want to downsize from a traditional single-family home and stay in Ozark with a smaller house with fewer maintenance needs.

He also suggested looking at pocket neighborhoods and other types of mixed housing to augment the city’s offerings.

“The comprehensive plan does recommend we talk about these things,” he said.

Among design standards that could be put into the plan are requirements for certain types or combinations of materials, or the requirement that two or three different materials be used. The standards could also dictate placements of stairways, doors and windows and the relationship of a doorway to the street, as well as how buildings are laid out on a site, he said.