When the Steeplegate Mall redevelopers put their plans up for city review, the zoning rules at the time required well over 3,000 parking spaces.
City regulations said that the Altitude Trampoline Park alone needed 703 designated parking spaces. Nearly another 300 were required for Zoo Health Club alone.
Anyone who’d gone to those businesses could see why those standards were excessive, representatives for the developer reasoned. Nor could the property fit that much parking.
Steeplegate did get the exceptions that it needed to move forward with its parking plan, but it had to go through the Zoning Board to do so. If the same proposal came forward today, the Planning Board would have oversight of the development’s parking arrangement.
This may not seem like an important difference, but it is.
That’s because of a change to city rules finalized by the Concord City Council this month, one that takes most parking requirements out of zoning rules and folds them into overall site plan regulations. The shift effectively eliminates “the need to go to the Zoning Board of Adjustment… for basically anything parking-related,” according to Concord’s Assistant Director of Community Development Tim Thompson.
The change is one of a string of tweaks to local land regulations that City Hall has been working on for the past few years. Of all the changes the city has considered, local developers have been especially anxious to see this one come to fruition.
Ari Pollack is a prominent land-use attorney in the city who has represented many of its most ambitious recent proposals, including the Steeplegate Mall project. He also serves on the city’s Economic Development Advisory Committee.
“There are a tremendous number of times where the ordinance points you towards a number [of spaces] that just isn’t based in any kind of reality,” he said when the committee endorsed this reform.
Changing the rules, he continued, will not only save time and expenses but also “it’s really saving anxiety.”
Going through the zoning board doesn’t just add time to the approvals process; it adds an additional arena for legal challenges or pushback.
“At the same time that you are spending heavily to prepare for the planning board process, there’s this thing that’s out there that could explode,” he added.
So what’s the difference?
Zoning rules are far more rigid, and getting variances from a zoning board is often more complicated than getting a permit through the planning board. Broadly, it means fewer steps and more flexible standards for commercial and residential projects alike to get the sign-offs they need. It also reduces the workload on city staff and the zoning board.
“We fully expect that this could reduce the zoning board’s workload by anywhere from 20 to 50 cases a year,” Thompson said.
Bringing in more commercial and residential development to expand the tax base is among city leaders’ highest stated priorities. Some in the development community have pointed to its outdated regulations and meandering approvals process as a drag on that goal. While the zoning ordinance will get a full rewrite after the city updates its master plan, the city has been pursuing more isolated changes to the zoning code as “relief valves” in the meantime.
