Norman Business and Community Affairs Committee Meeting on Lot Sizes and Elections - October 2, 2025
Norman Business and Community Affairs Committee Meeting - October 2, 2025
The Business and Community Affairs Committee of the Norman City Council met on October 2, 2025, to discuss two agenda items: proposed changes to minimum lot sizes for development and potential scheduling of a charter election alongside other spring elections. No consent calendar or public testimony were heard.
Discussion Items
Minimum Lot Sizes for Development
Jane Hudson, Planning Director, presented options for reducing or eliminating minimum lot size requirements in residential zones (R1A, R1, R2, RM2, R3). Current minima range from 4,500 to 7,000 square feet. Proposed options include: no minimum lot size, or setting a low minimum such as 1,400 square feet (inspired by Houston and Austin). Hudson noted that associated regulations like front yard setbacks (currently 25 feet) and street frontage (50 feet, 35 on cul-de-sacs) could be adjusted to 20-foot front setbacks and 35-foot frontage. Lot depth is currently 100 feet. Coverage is currently 65% total; smaller lots might require higher coverage (up to 75% or 85% with engineering). Committee members expressed strong support for eliminating minimum lot sizes, stating that the market and engineering requirements would self-regulate. Some suggested a recommended minimum (e.g., 1,500 sq ft) for guidance but not a hard requirement. Discussion included examples from The Villages and St. James Park subdivisions with lot widths of 30-35 feet. The committee agreed that developers should demonstrate that smaller lots work, especially on corner lots. The chair indicated intention to take the proposal to a full council study session.
Charter Election and Other Spring Elections
The committee considered scheduling a street maintenance bond renewal (20-year program, reapproved four times) and potential charter amendments alongside the February city council elections or an April election. Charter amendments discussed include: changing the swearing-in time for elected officials (from months after election to within 30 days of certification), increasing council pay, and possibly revisiting a utility rate change (allowing a non-council trust to recommend rates). Previous charter amendments in the last review had nine questions; six passed, three failed (including term length, pay, and utility rates). Ballot fatigue was noted: the first question had over 1,000 more votes than the ninth. The committee considered splitting items between February and April to avoid overload. Staff preferred April for more time, but February could leverage candidate campaigns for outreach. A pending state Supreme Court ruling on a referendum (related to a TIF district) could also require a citywide vote, affecting timing. No final decision was made; staff will bring recommendations to the full council on October 28.
Key Outcomes
- Minimum Lot Sizes: The committee gave direction to staff to prepare a proposal for eliminating minimum lot sizes for a future full council study session.
- Charter Election: No vote was taken. The committee discussed options for February or April 2026 elections, with a preference for balancing ballot items. Staff will present a recommendation at the October 28 council meeting.
- No other decisions or votes were recorded.
Meeting Transcript
That was my high school gold. Oh, yeah. We ready? Yes. Okay. No, we do. All right. I guess we're live, so we're gonna go ahead and get started. Welcome everybody to the Tuesday, October 2nd of the City of Norman's uh business and community affairs committee. Uh today we have two items on the agenda. The first being a discussion regarding minimum lot sizes for development. I believe Miss Jane Hudson has a brief presentation for us, so I'll go turn it over to you. Brief. Brief. Okay, thank you so much. Yes, Jane has Sun Planning Director. Uh so I want to the first slide is actually a carryover from the last time when we were here in April, and I kept it in here just because I wanted to remind everybody that the uh two subdivision scenarios, what we were talking about last time was how to possibly subdivide an existing property with an ADU on the back or something like that. But uh we're expanding the discussion today, but I wanted to keep this slide in there just to uh remind everyone you know, we have the greenfield development, and then we also have uh the infill, and then we have the existing zoning, the requirements for uh lot area, so the 4500 uh square feet, six thousand, and then uh five thousand. So uh part of the discussion today is about minimum lot sizes. Our current regulations again, same thing that was on the other screen, but uh R1A, 4500 square feet, R1, you have to have 6,000, R2 is 5,000 if you're developing a single family home, and you have to have 7,000 if you're doing a single family home or uh sorry, single family home and a garage apartment or a duplex. So you have to have that 7,000 in the RM2 R3, you can have uh 5,000. If you're doing multifamily development, that does require an additional square footage within those zoning districts, so about 3,000 square feet of additional area for every unit over three, I believe it is. But I wanted that in there so we could have that to talk about as we move forward with this discussion. So the proposed uh regulation options would be no minimum lot size, period, and that would be in these districts that I've outlined already. So the R1A, R1, R2, RM2, R3. And I want to add this 1400 square feet. Uh we looked at a couple places real quick, and Houston, I believe, has a minimum of 1400 square feet. I believe Austin had 1,800 square feet or 1,500 square feet, but that's just some information for you in case we want to talk about that, as opposed to just doing zero for development, and again, I'm talking about new development, so I'm talking about greenfield development. We're coming in with a preliminary plat. We would have to review everything that will be coming in on that plat. So we have to have our street frontage, uh appropriate location for solid waste collection, emergency vehicle access, adequate drive access, and then of course utility access. So the easements for water and sewer would have to be accounted for our current setbacks are 25 feet for the front yard, five feet on either side, 20 feet for rear setback, and we do have a 65% maximum coverage. And we went back a couple years ago and updated that. So it's 65 uh total coverage. We did have it broken into 40 percent for structures and then the additional 25 for uh paving, but we we just did 65 percent across the board for that. If we are going to make this change to go to no lot size requirements, I wanted to throw this out there because I think this is something that we need to talk about. And like I said, the the front yard setback right now is 25. I think that we need to pull the front yard to 20. That keeps the setback for the garage for a car to park in the driveway and not overhang onto the sidewalk. But if we're reducing the lot size and keeping a 25 foot front yard setback, that's some additional area that somebody could utilize for housing. Something to think about. And again, still required to plat if unplatted. The other thing that I wanted to talk about, uh so for the current subdivision regulations, we have uh a minimum distance of street frontage of 50 feet for a lot. If you're on a cul-de-sac, you can have 35 feet. Depth of the lot is 100 feet. If we make these changes, we were thinking that we could do uh 35 feet for a butting the street, and the depth of the lot. I wanted to talk about that. We've had two, so I want to go through these. So we've had two items uh in a cut the last couple years. We had the villages, those are about 30, 35 feet wide, but they were all still a hundred feet in depth.
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