Science who seem to be welcome to the regular meeting of Blacksburg Planning Commission, which are held uh on the first Tuesday of each month here at 6 30 p.m.

here at the Rogery Heads Pass Chambers of the Boxburg Municipal Building.

Uh citizens may address the planning commission during specified times on the agenda and a request to do it here to the following.

Uh speak at the podium.

State your name and address, direct comments only to the commission.

Please limit speaking time to a maximum of three minutes and speak only once during a specific hearing or comment period.

Please silence all cell phones, show respect for all speakers, and allow all opinions to be expressed in a tolerant atmosphere.

With that, we will call the meeting to order.

And Casey will be doing the roll call.

Casey will conduct the roll call.

Here.

James Cass.

Here.

Here.

Walker.

Here, sorry.

We have a quorum.

Wonderful.

We'll move on to our consent agenda.

There's two items on the consent agenda this week.

One is the approval of the Planning Commission minutes from June 4th, 2024.

And the second is zoning ordinance amendment ZOA 60 ordinance 2001, which is an amendment to amend the text of the town zoning ordinance to create a new downtown northwest zoning district for the area bounded by North Main Street, Turner Street, and Prices Fork Road.

And the action there is to schedule a public hearing for August 6, 2024.

Do we have a motion?

I move approval of the consent agenda.

Second.

All those in favor?

I'm abstaining from any votes this evening.

Okay, thank you.

Move on to our public hearings.

Our first public hearing is zoning ordinance ZOA 61.

An amendment to the Town of Blacksburg zoning ordinance to create a new small lot development option in the R4 low density residential zoning district to allow for smaller lot sizes.

And we have a staff presentation by Collector.

This is a zoning ordinance amendment to the R4 zoning district to allow for a small lot development option.

I'll start with a little bit of background.

Um this slide really covers that we have a housing shortage, um, a shortage of housing options in the town, um like many communities across the country, and that the comprehensive plan suggests revisions to the zoning ordinance, including to lot size, density, layout, and reduced parking requirements as a strategy to address this issue.

The next several slides um uh were covered around uh a memo from Camiras, who is a consultant that's been working with us on this project for some time.

These were covered in a January 2023 memo and were also provided in the staff report as well as on the Let's Talk website uh page that we have for this project.

The idea here is we're just trying to understand the context of the districts that we are working with in.

These are the existing districts for the zoning ordinance with the town, the residential districts that are on the lower end of the density.

We have the RR1 district, which doesn't have minimum lot sizes, but the density is one unit per acre.

Um R2 uh requires a planned development with a minimum size of 30 acres, so that's a pretty significant area.

R4, which this would be a development option under, currently requires a 10,000 square foot lot or 7500 square feet for the open space overlay.

The R5 district allows for an 8500 square foot lot for single family and some attached units, and the old town residential zoning district allows for a 7500 square foot lot for single family and some attached housing as well.

We look at some of the nearby areas, um, including areas within town as well as within Roanoke in a couple neighboring communities in Kentucky and North Carolina and looking at the different types of small lots that could be possible and are using these as an example for how the ordinance and the text was developed.

The first is Airport Acres, which has um average lot sizes of 8,500 square feet.

That is an R4 district, but it is also uh considered non-conforming because the lot sizes are smaller than the 10,000 square foot minimum.

We also look at Eccles Village, which was developed through a planned residential development that has 3,500 square foot lots.

Then we also look at the village at Toms Creek, which ranges from 3,500 square feet to 5,000 square foot lots and does include some attached housing in the form of duplexes and townhomes.

Two examples out of Roanoke are the Wasina neighborhood and the Granin Village neighborhood, which have around 6,500 to 7,000 square foot lots.

Norton Commons is a transit development in Louisville, Kentucky.

Those lot sizes vary but can be as small as a tenth of an acre.

And antiquity in Cornelius, North Carolina, those lot sizes also vary, but can be as small as 2,500 square feet.

Some of these examples do allow the last two in particular, allow for greater lot coverage in combination with the small lots than what's being proposed within the ordinance here.

Again, this is a proposed option within the R4 low density residential zoning district.

Sites that are eligible would be of two or more contiguous developable acres that are held in common ownership.

The ordinance itself, this amendment was not designed for infill application and so would not apply to infill lots.

It does allow for single family detached on smaller lot sizes, as well as allowing for two family dwellings, duplexes and townhouses, only when served by alley access, and additional standards apply, which I will cover later in the presentation.

This would be by this ordinance would allow for buy right development of these uses, but it must meet all of the standards.

This map was included in your staff report and is also found on the web.