Photo provided Arrows denote parcels being considered by city council for rezoning.
Columbus City Council members gave preliminary approval to rezone a number of lots near Eighth Street and Hutchins Avenue to better match their long-time residential use.
Council members on Tuesday night unanimously passed the first reading of an ordinance to rezone 10 lots near the intersection of Eighth Street and Hutchins Avenue from Commercial: Neighborhood (CN) to Residential: Established (RE).
Ordinances must be passed twice to be official. The council will look to finalize the rezoning during their meeting on Feb. 3.
The rezoning request was initiated by the planning department to address a mismatch between the current zoning and the actual use of the lots as residential, Planning Director Jeff Bergman said.
“The planning department’s observation is that these lots do not have future commercial development potential and that this current commercial zoning both misidentifies their true potential future uses and unnecessarily burdens the existing homes,” Bergman wrote in a memo to council members, adding the current zoning could potentially cause confusion on behalf of property owners if they want to improve their lots because of the “regulatory barriers” associated with the commercial designation of the parcels.
Council members finalized the rezoning of 29 lots near 17th Street and Cottage Avenue in August that the planning department also brought about for the same purpose. Bergman told the council there will likely be a couple more similar requests brought forward by the planning department later on.
The Columbus Plan Commission on Dec. 10 forwarded a unanimously favorable recommendation regarding the rezoning.
The planning department sent letters out to owners of property potentially included in the rezoning in advance of the plan commission meeting in December. Excluded from the rezoning are 803 Maple St., as well as 848 and 854 Cottage Ave., according to city documents.
The owner of 848 Cottage Ave. indicated to the planning department that they had interest in selling the home to an adjacent business for a possible expansion, and wished to keep the commercial zoning.
