Commissioners OK new Johnson County zoning code

A new Johnson County zoning ordinance has been approved, though some changes may come in the future.

The Board of Commissioners unanimously approved a new Unified Development Ordinance, or UDO, Monday that includes a new approval process for small subdivisions, the creation of new subdivision types, a Fee-in-Lieu program and more. The UDO determines zoning rules and guidelines for the unincorporated areas of the county.

The process was a 16 to 17 month collaboration between the planning department, American Structurepoint, Inc. and The Planning Workshop, Inc., said Matthew O’Rourke, a planning and economic development group leader from American Structurepoint. There was an open house in May and the county plan commission approved it in August after public hearings.

While the new UDO was approved by the commissioners, they did have some concerns Monday. All three commissioners advocated for more rules for wind farms, with Commissioner Brian Baird saying other counties have put terms in place that Johnson County should consider.

“You’ve done a good job of addressing the solar [farms] with the protections you put in with that,” Commissioner Kevin Walls added. “Some of this wind stuff, you can’t protect a 300-foot tall windmill that’s whizzing around constantly and that’s what my concern is with this, that there’s not enough restrictions in here to prohibit that unless we put something in place.”

O’Rourke said special exceptions go through the formal public hearing approval process and go through the Johnson County Board of Zoning Appeals. This is how the process was laid out in the previous zoning code and didn’t modify it in detail.

Both Baird and Walls said they didn’t like the approval only going through the BZA.

The commissioners opted to approve the new UDO and pursue amending it at a later time because not approving it could trigger a process with more public hearings and more discussions between the commissioners and the plan commission, said Adam Gadberry, county attorney.

Walls said he hopes the new ordinance is easy to understand and follow.

“One comment I heard you say is common sense, and I hope to heck that this thing has a lot of common sense in it … I want [it] to be user friendly and I hope, like I said, I hope to heck this is user friendly,” Walls said.

The previous zoning and subdivision ordinances were first adopted in 2002. The zoning ordinance was last updated this year and the subdivision ordinance was last updated in 2018.

The specifics

The new ordinance went through several phases while heading towards final approval and contains several differences from the previous zoning code.

There is new process where minor subdivisions — consisting of three or few lots that can only be approved for residential and agricultural uses — go to a new subcommittee for approval.

“The idea here is that these (are) … the easy things that don’t have a lot of controversy, that are minor — no new roads, things like that. Those can have a faster, easier process,” K.K. Gerhart-Fritz, president of The Planning Workshop, previously said.

She said that only one minor subdivision is allowed per parent parcel to prevent someone from abusing the rule by making multiple minor subdivisions to avoid requirements of a major subdivision.

There is also a new subdivision type called the agricultural subdivision that is meant to be a tool for farmers “to allow them to sell property, to exchange property, etc. — not to become a developer,” Gerhart-Fritz said. Consultants had heard a lot about loopholes and issues related to subdivisions in agricultural areas.

Under major residential subdivisions, there are two new types: the major traditional residential subdivision, with gridded streets and smaller lots, and the major conservation residential subdivision to set aside or preserve environmentally attractive or unique areas and group homes on a separate portion.

Developers also now have more flexibility with landscaping and buffering.

“One of the things we heard from staff input was to make it a little more flexible so that everything doesn’t have to be just like a marching of trees and there can be a little more flexibility with design and layout, a little less formal,” Gerhart-Fritz said.

Other highlights of the UDO include a Fee-in-Lieu program which allows developers to pay the estimated cost of a required sidewalk instead of constructing it. The UDO also provides landscape preservation incentives or credits to encourage preservation. There are credits available for trees, shrubs and native grasses or other unique landscape area, documents show.

Although it isn’t a requirement to preserve trees, if a developer has a big shade tree and preserves it, for example, then fewer things need to be planted.

At the public hearings in July that extended to August, members of the public pushed to add the concept of a Planned Unified Development, or PUD, back into the ordinance to provide creative and innovative developments. David Baird, a senior project manager from American Structurepoint, previously said PUDs were originally left out as a means to have straight zoning and having the mixed-use, development style “realistically is going to be difficult to create.”

Other changes from the public hearing included amending indoor public assembly hours and occupancy requirements in certain zoning districts and adding the word “family” back into terms like “single-family dwelling,” among other topics.

The new ordinance eliminated previously drafted restrictions on hours and occupancy for places of indoor public assembly in agricultural, agricultural/residential, single-family residential and duplex residential districts. For indoor public assembly in those certain zoning districts, the restrictions originally were that the facility couldn’t exceed 800 people or last longer than a full day and events could only happen from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. These rules were taken out of the draft at last month’s meeting.

Consultants originally took out the word “family” to create less ambiguity for non-traditional families so the term “family” isn’t scrutinized and to closer align with how things are enforced from a practical standpoint. However, commission member Stoney Vann asked for the word “family” to be added back in and his point-of-view received favorable recognition from some members of the public who clapped after he spoke. The word was added back in as a condition of the plan commission’s favorable approval.

The final approved UDO can be viewed here.