Now that the former DAV headquarters site is zoned mixed-use planned development, what could this mean for the rest of northern Cold Spring?
City officials are wondering the same thing.
The Cold Spring Planning and Zoning Commission is considering possible amendments to its mixed-use planned development zone. This conversation follows the Cold Spring City Council’s approval of a zone change on the former DAV headquarters site from an industrial park to a mixed-use planned development, also known as MUPD, and neighborhood commercial zone, making way for medical buildings and possible restaurants.
Some residents and city officials have expressed concerns about the former DAV site’s zone change causing a domino effect for its surrounding areas to also be zoned MUPD. That includes the neighboring street, Henry Court, which is currently residential. Those residents and officials have also noted concern about the MUPD zone encroaching on the city’s north end when it has historically remained in the south.
According to Cold Spring’s zoning text, the MUPD zone was established to develop a variety of office, commercial, residential and related uses planned and designed as a total and comprehensive development.
Cold Spring residents attended the multiple meetings held for that development, expressing concerns about density and traffic. Following its approval of the zone change, the city requested that the planning commission consider amendments to its MUPD zone. The planning commission began discussing the items at its Aug. 14 meeting, and discussions will continue at a future meeting.
Some heavy-hitter topics among the commission and residents were height restriction and density, the zone’s 10-acre requirement and the traffic study requirements in stage one plans.
Former Cold Spring Mayor Mark Stoeber has addressed past planning and zoning and city council meetings regarding the former DAV site critical of its zone change. He attended the Sept. 11 planning and zoning meeting.
“It was never dreamed that MUPD would be on the north end of the city,” Stoeber said. “Never dreamed. Everybody figured it was going to go on the south end of the city, where there’s these massive areas.”
Stoeber is referring to the DAV site’s approval for a zone change to the MUPD zone located at the north end of Cold Spring.
Density
The MUPD zone requires multifamily or attached housing but does not currently mention density.
Now that the city is putting a MUPD zone at the northern end of the city, Stoeber said density has become an issue. Does it make sense to put 500 apartment units in that area?
According to the zoning text, no MUPD zone will be permitted on less than 10 acres of land; however, an area of less than 10 acres (but not smaller than one acre) can be zoned MUPD if it is adjacent to an area with an existing stage one development plan and currently zoned MUPD.
Campbell County Planning and Zoning Director Cindy Minter said during the August meeting that she was going to work on language that would restrict the expansion capabilities of the MUPD so that it is only part of the primary development. Some suggestions she proposed were that it must include access points and can’t be separated by an arterial road. For example, any parcel adjacent to the former DAV site now zoned MUPD, could not become an MUPD zone if it was across U.S. 27.
Stoeber brought up during the meeting a concern that one-acre parcels of an MUPD zone could start popping up all over the north end of the city. He named Henry Court, the street with residential, single-family housing next to the former DAV site, and what would happen if a developer decided to start buying those houses and building permitted uses in the MUPD zone.
The zone allows several commercial uses, including stores, bakeries, art galleries, dance studios, barbers, etc.
At past meetings regarding the DAV site, members of the Cold Spring City Council expressed a desire to control the type of residential housing allowed in the MUPD zone.
“Density, I’d like to see a text amendment added to the mixed-use planned development zone (part of the future development area at the former DAV site) so that we can control the amount of buildings, apartments, condos on one acre,” Cold Spring City Council Member Cindy Moore said at a July council meeting. “If we don’t control it now, we’re never going to control it.”
She said there are many one-acre lots attached to the property (mainly on Henry Court) that would automatically change to a mixed-use planned development zone.
The MUPD zone does not restrict building height, but Minter said other factors can. One is whether the fire department service can be adequately provided. Various building codes kick in once a building reaches a certain number of stories, which can relate to things like elevators and sprinklers. Minter said this can cause the cost-benefit ratio to start decreasing if the demand isn’t there.
Minter said she doesn’t see a multiuse building going above three stories, maybe four, in an area like Cold Spring, though it is possible.
“If you all believe that, as a policy, the mixed-use needs to encourage more foot-traffic type businesses, if you’re going to give them the ability to have that residential component, give them a carrot to encourage that [multiuse] versus just stand-alone [residential]” Cold Spring City Attorney Brandon Voelker said.
Stoeber said the MUPD zone was initially intended to be a city within a city, which is one reason it requires 20% green space.
“That’s actually why you see the 20% in the stage one plan,” Stoeber said. “It is, pardon my French, so damn important we are making the developer show what you’re going to do with that 20%. Side note: that’s why I’m so mad that the stage one plan for the current development (former DAV site) was allowed to go forward without any representation of what happened with the 20%.”
The commission proposed a change so that residential use in the MUPD zone would not exceed residential 3, also referred to as R3, zoning requirements, which allow 14 units per acre.
“So, you want to keep residential as a permitted use, but you want to cap it at 14 dwelling units per acre,” Minter said. “Any type of dwelling unit can be in there, from detached single-family homes all the way up to multifamily. The difference between the R3 and the MUPD at that point is the MUPD operates more like an R3 with a PUD (planned unit development—a community of single-family homes, condos or townhomes, where every homeowner belongs to a homeowner’s association.)”
The commission also expressed interest in requiring 20% green space per stage one site plan. For example, the former DAV site is divided into two site plans: one with 17 acres and another with 10 acres. Both of those site plans would be required to include 20% green space.
Property owners and developers express their concerns
Developers and property owners attended the planning and zoning meeting to express their concerns about the effects these proposed changes could have on their properties.
Dallas Bray with Bray Enterprises spoke at the August and September planning and zoning meetings.
Bray purchased roughly 30 acres of property in the city in 2003 near the Cold Spring Pointe development. The city annexed the property, and he was given an MUPD zone. Bray said he was concerned about being required to have commercial use tied to his property.
Due to its typography, he said building commercial uses on his land wouldn’t make sense.
The owners (Woeste Donald L & Rose L Living Trust/Bray Enterprises) purchased the land roughly 20 years ago and have been waiting for sewer lines to be put in. Now that they have been, they wish to market and build a multifamily unit community on the property.
“The proposed text amendment to the MUPD zone would pull the rug out from under that plan,” said one of the property owners, Donna Pickett. “It would be a serious breach on an agreement that we’ve long had with the city of Cold Spring. It’s not only not fair, but a failure of the trust we’ve had placed into the city.”
The family proposed that the city consider leaving the multifamily as listed, grandfathering their property from their original agreement or changing their zone to a residential 3 zone to allow for just residential.
No deal was finalized during the meeting, but they were headed toward a resolution that would work with a density cap matching the residential 3 zone.
Ken Perry, owner of Ken Perry Realty, also spoke at the meeting.
Perry said MUPD zoning allows creativity and progressiveness in a community.
Perry said he is currently working on a development for senior housing on 13 acres of undeveloped land in Cold Spring, known as the Rogers Family Trust.
“Keep in mind, if you do restrict the unit size that would also restrict the unit size in senior housing,” Perry said. “I would ask that you actually exclude senior housing if you do decide to restrict the residential unit size in a multifamily develop.”
Voelker said the law restricts them from discriminating or distinguishing on the basis of age, race or gender.
“I would not ever advise a city to have an age quota for density,” Voelker said. “It’s just not going to fly.”
Perry said he wasn’t convinced that there wasn’t a way to write the zoning code to exclude senior housing since they are a protected class that is nationally recognized.
“We have a known need for senior housing in Campbell County, and it’s been one of the focuses on a national level to bring more senior housing communities,” Perry said.
Traffic study requirement
One change to the zoning text that the commission all agreed they wanted to see was a traffic study requirement to a developer’s stage one plan, which currently isn’t required.
Voelker said the city council sponsored a text amendment that would require the Kentucky Department of Transportation to give some level of approval before development plans are submitted.
The commission recognized that this requirement could set back development. Minter said traffic studies are typically done when school is in session. If a developer comes forward in May, they probably couldn’t complete that traffic study until sometime in October or November.
“I get that it’s going to push timelines back, but I’ve been on the board for years now.” Said Cold Spring Planning and Zoning Commission Member Greg Hizer. “Every single time we have a meeting without a development plan, the issue of traffic comes up. We have to address that upfront so that we know what the implications are for what we’re looking at.”
According to Minter, these text amendment conversations will continue at another meeting that could be as early as next week.
