P&Z gives thumbs-up to updated zoning code

The Springfield Planning and Zoning Commission unanimously recommended adoption of an update to the city’s Community Land Development Code – the first comprehensive update since 1995 – at its meeting last night.

The code update is scheduled to appear on the Springfield City Council agenda for a first reading and public hearing on March 10, with a vote set for March 24.

This regulatory document, sometimes referred to as the zoning code, explains rules, processes and procedures for the use of land within the Springfield city limits, according to a news release from the city.

The revision was guided by four principles, according to project manager Chris Brewster of Multistudio, the Kansas City-based architecture and design firm hired by the city to complete the update: to implement Forward SGF, to improve the usability of the code, to streamline procedures so decisions are made in a clear and effective way, and to provide flexibility in the development process.

“We wanted to provide flexibility where it’s warranted and give better decision-making tools to applicants, staff and you all,” he said during the meeting.

The document serves as the implementation tool for the city’s 20-year comprehensive plan, Forward SGF, that it passed in 2022. The code update process began in spring 2023.

If council OK’s the draft, city staff will get to work updating Springfield’s zoning map and bringing any additional text amendments to P&Z before full implementation of the code in spring 2026, according to Steve Childers, Springfield’s director of Planning & Development.

Childers noted that hundreds of people participated in discussions that informed the Forward SGF plan.

“The vision set out by Forward SGF established a bold new direction for the city of Springfield, one that required an update to the city’s zoning code,” he said in the release.

The city is seeking further input on detailed components of updates to the code by March 5, according to another news release. Some of these components related to right-of-way regulations and public works design standards, including driveway standards and technical requirements of the city’s traffic study process.

Documents may be reviewed and feedback may be provided on the city’s website. 

At last night’s meeting, P&Z members heard an overview of the code changes from Brewster, who noted three decades is a long time to go without a comprehensive code update.

“Your code exhibits a lot of the problems that any code that hasn’t been looked at in that long exhibits,” he said. “It has quick fixes that have been pieced together to solve issues of the day; amendments have been made over time. It gets a little bit more disorganized, and next thing you know it becomes really hard to work with.”

He added that these are issues Multistudio observed with the code during the analysis period, and they were also reflected in stakeholder interviews about problems with the code.

Another issue, according to Brewster, is that the existing code was use-based. This means it relies on standard zoning designations, such as commercial or single-family residential, while Forward SGF is place-based and incorporates an idea of how an area should function. Looking at land use without taking in the bigger picture can lead to inflexibility, according to Brewster.

But the bigger issue is that the code ignored some of the effects development has had in the city over time, he said..

“It was also geared to what we call suburban development pattern – it was geared toward growth, geared for more car-oriented development, from an older period of time when Springfield was growing,” he said. “As Forward SGF talked about, you have a lot more urban and infill situations that needed attention, and so this code wasn’t doing too good a job with that.”

The existing code was doing some things well, Brewster said, while others areas needed to be strengthened or were absent from the code.

He said the revisions were guided by the idea of strengthening quality of place through development by using a design-based approach and a place-type approach.

Displaying a map of the city, he said noted a place-based approach emphasizes an area’s character.

“Land use isn’t the only thing distinguishing those different places,” he said.

One of the stronger parts of Forward SGF was a recognition of the interaction of the public realm and private development. It encourages the city to look at some of its special streets differently.

“The plan starts to plan the seeds for looking at that,” he said. “That all leads to what our approach to the code was, was how do we bring those two things together – the idea of the public realm and street types forming the design and framework, and then how should private development respond to it?”

He said that was part of what the revision injects into the code.

Formerly, the code looked more at uses with some attention to form. “Then design was added in for when it was needed to kind of fix things or address concerns or mitigate impacts,” he said. “This code does the opposite. It tries to be more flexible with uses, puts the bigger emphasis on form and scale and patterns of development and then uses design to blend those together.”

The city’s investment for the code revision was $590,828, paid to two firms: Multistudio and Ashville, North Carolina-based Urban3, which gathered public input for the plan, according to past Springfield Business Journal reporting.

SBJ will provide more detail about the proposed code revisions in future coverage.