Significant land reform could be coming to Louisville. The Metro Planning Commission recently voted 8-1 to advance the Office of Planning’s “Neighborhood Housing” plan – a sweeping rewrite of the city’s Land Development Code aimed at adding more housing options along existing commercial corridors. Earning overwhelming support among the commissioners, the proposal will be drafted into ordinance form and sent to Council for their consideration.
The Commission’s work product is the latest piece of a Land Development Code Reform effort that has been underway in some fashion since the beginning of the decade. One Louisville has long supported tools for creating new housing supply, and a “by right” development plan in established corridors is a needed, major step toward putting downward pressure on affordability. One Louisville has been involved in the plan’s development, convening a Regional Land Development Task Force to gather input and provide feedback over multiple meetings among key stakeholders and city leaders.
At its core, Neighborhood Housing accommodates the “missing middle” housing types “between single-family homes and larger, multi-family apartment buildings,” including duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes, townhomes, walking courts, cottage courts, and mixed-use developments. If passed, such homes could go up within a quarter mile of major commercial corridors with existing infrastructure, such as Dixie Highway, Bardstown Road, Preston Highway and Shelbyville Road. They would also be available in residential developments of three or more acres, and within the city’s older “Traditional Neighborhood” districts. Other changes to the code would shrink minimum lot sizes, measure building height by number of stories rather than feet, drop floor-area-ratio limits in commercial zones, and speed up approvals for projects that already meet the new standards.
Planners built in several guardrails meant to ease apprehensions from existing homeowners: no more than half the lots on a given block face could use the new housing types; no more than three identical buildings could sit next to each other, front-yard parking would be banned; and existing homes generally couldn’t be demolished to make way for new development.
Office of Planning Director Brian Davis has framed the push around affordability, noting that one in four Louisville families spends more than 30 percent of their income on housing.
The proposal now goes to the Metro Council, where it will then be assigned to the Planning and Zoning Committee