Zoning Healthy ratios of multi-family to commercial and/or office uses in mixed-use sites

[Doberman]

I know this is a bit subjective. My area has essentially put a moratorium on future multifamily developments based on school overcrowding, city services, and transportation infrastructure. We have a developer that wants to do multifamily and are willing to include a commercial component to the site to get a rezoning through. In our disease-ridden era, I think locking someone into commercial would be a win for us, even with some multifamily.

 

[B'lieve]

Is that part of Birmingham growing enough, or short enough on commercial businesses, to fill a commercial component pretty quickly? And is there any kind of contribution to infrastructure (road, water/sewer, bus service) that you can get them to chip into to sweeten the deal, or would that bust their budget or drive them to another town or unincorporated area?

Another interesting thought, do the county and city school boards down your way adjust school-attendance boundaries to reduce overcrowding? Here in Maryland (one school district per county, plus Baltimore City, a county-equivalent independent city), that's the go-to move before the very expensive steps of expanding existing schools or building new ones. And in relatively wealthy areas it brings the Chicken-Littles and soft-racists out of the woodwork like pearl-clutching roaches. Nevertheless, the changes usually go through, and it usually works at least for a while. That might be worth a try to help this through, assuming (as it sounds from your question) that more multifamily and commercial is something the neighborhood needs.

Good luck, and stay safe

 

[DennisMaPlanner]

It has been awhile since I have been in Cyburbia, and longer still since I last commented. I might be a bit late responding to your inquiry, but, a few thoughts. We have looked at development centers in a few parts of town. Ultimate goal is to establish jobs:housing balances in these areas. In these areas, two a bit depressed, one a vast commercial area, all have less housing than jobs. Even so, the zoning we adopted (in two areas) and contemplated, promote the creation of both new residential and commercial areas. In the commercial district, the housing would have a minimum of 35% of new floor space, retail/hospitality would have a minimum of 20% of new floor space, and office would get a minimum of 20% as well. The remaining 25% could be used in whatever fashion the developer/market could support.