Columbia City Council continues to hear comments on Unified Development Code

Columbia City Council held the second of four meetings to talk about modifying the city’s Unified Development Code at 9 a.m. Saturday.

The Unified Development Code contains revised zoning and subdivision provisions and it consolidates development standards in a single chapter of the city code.

The UDC will update subdivision requests, zoning and land preservation requirements for the city and update zoning regulations involving infrastructure, multi-family housing, and parking standards.

The first meeting was held Monday night and most people discussed the design rules of multi-family and single-family housing that are next to each other.

One issue many residents were concerned about was neighborhood preservation. Residents in central-Columbia neighborhoods in particular were concerned with the possibility of large apartment buildings moving in and changing the dynamic of their neighborhood.

“Making a neighborhood and building a community are things that large multi unit apartment complexes don’t allow very often,” one resident said. “I know my neighbors so much more than I ever have in the three previous apartment buildings I lived in.”

One long-time resident from the East Campus neighborhood warned that the trends of downtown often spill into the nearby neighborhoods.

“The protection plan is a start,” the resident said “But it’s inadequate for our zoning and needs be enhanced in order to offer a chance for paving a solid future toward revitalizing some of what has been lost for neighborhoods like East Campus.”

Another resident spoke about the people who live around her in her north-central Columbia neighborhood. She pointed out the modest income she and her neighbors make and told the council allowing for large scale apartment buildings to go up in the area will not only lessen the “neighborly” feeling but make is almost impossible to own a home.

“As we remove the small foot print houses and replace them with more expensive apartments of this larger scale, we go from the possibility of owner occupied, to only rental models,” she said. “You cannot simultaneously support a policy of social and economic justice for our citizens and encourage the demolition of the affordable housing.”

Building larger, multi-family buildings in existing neighborhoods can also create a parking issue, something residents say is already an issue in the area. In the past, the council has discussed the possibility of creating a parking permit program for certain neighborhoods.