The Mayor and Aldermen approved this text amendment request following a zoning hearing at the March 29, 2018, City Council Meeting.  The action being considered now is the approval of an ordinance for the text amendment.

Foram Development, LLC, Petitioner, represented by Robert L. McCorkle, III, agent (File No. 18-000592-ZA) seeks approval of text amendments to Article K (Mid-City District), Civic and Institutional (CIV) District.

The alternative amendment is to amend the CIV (Civic-Institutional) Zoning District to:

1) Permit Multi-family residential and Event Venue without alcohol sales in the CIV Zoning District;

2) Allow Event Venue with alcohol sales, Subject to Special Use Review in the CIV Zoning District;

3) Create subparagraph (6) Redevelopment of CIV District Parcels with Civic and Institutional Uses.

The petitioner’s initial request was to establish a new zoning classification for the Mid-City District referred to as TC-3 (Traditional Commercial-Mixed Use Development) and to amend certain Mid-City district parking standards. A petition to rezone five parcels to TC-3 was also requested. These petitions were continued from the February 20 Planning Commission meeting to a special-called meeting on February 27 because of two tied votes (4-4) to either approve or deny the request.

At the February 20 meeting MPC staff suggested the possibility of a text amendment to the CIV district as an alternative to the TC-3 district originally requested by the petitioner. With the Planning Commission’s support, MPC staff presented a text amendment at the February 27 meeting that proposed to allow certain large contributing buildings with the CIV districts to be redeveloped using a more flexible zoning approach, and to include adjacent and associated parcels.  MPC staff presented its recommended amendment; the petitioner presented an alternate version of staff’s recommendation.

On February 27, 2018, the Planning Commission voted to recommend approval of the petitioner’s amendments.  Additionally, during the public meeting on the rezoning request, the petitioner’s agent verbally withdrew the TC-3 rezoning request, but the original TC-3 amendment has not been withdrawn.

Approval