Residents still unhappy with proposed zoning changes
HOLLAND In the face of public opposition to proposed zoning changes included in Holland s Unified Development Ordinance, the Holland Planning Commission, which has been directing the drafting of the UDO, has tweaked, walked back or completely removed some of the proposed changes.
But has the commission modified the proposal enough to satisfy the concerns of residents? No, they re not listening to us, said Fred Floberg, who lives in the R-1, or single-family residential zone district.
Many R-1 residents were angered by a proposal to legalize duplexes in their neighborhoods on lots of 10,000 square feet or larger.
HOLLAND In light of continued concern from residents of Holland s center-city neighborhoods, the Holland Planning Commission is scaling back proposed changes to zoning standards in the Traditional Neighborhood Residential district.
The changes are being proposed as part of a much larger project to revamp and combine the city s zoning and development ordinance into a unified development ordinance, or UDO.
In the Traditional Neighborhood Residential zone district, labeled R-TRN in Holland s current zoning map, lot size requirements for multifamily housing are proposed to shrink, making more properties eligible to build two-, three- and four-unit homes in the district.
The original proposal in the most recent draft of the UDO was to decrease the per-unit square footage requirement from 4,800 square feet to 3,250 square feet.
In Thursday’s Sentinel, in an article titled “Holland Planning Commission delays UDO hearing,” senior city planner Jenna Elswick said the proposed zoning changes are not a rezoning, but rather a change in zoning standards. This is an inaccurate and misleading statement.
For example, several vacant properties that lie between Paw Paw Drive and Chicago Drive are currently zoned AGR (Agricultural). Under the proposed changes, all of these properties will be “up-zoned” to Low Density Residential. The article goes on to say that “many of Holland’s zone districts are also proposed to be renamed under UDO.” The UDO proposal in regards to the parcels I mentioned goes far beyond simply renaming or changing standards. Going from AGR to LDR is the very definition of rezoning.