Table of Contents

Accessory Dwelling Units

Food Systems

Rethinking Off-Street Parking Requirements

Tactical Urbanism

Urban Agriculture

Accessory Dwelling Units

The city’s unified development code permits internal, attached, and detached accessory dwellings by right in most residential districts, subject to use-specific standards (§47-19.2.A). These standards address unit size, number of bedrooms, entrances, units per lot, density and lot size, parking, and servant’s quarters.

Rethinking Off-Street Parking Requirements

The city’s unified land development code includes multiple types of policy-driven off-street parking requirements. It exempts all uses from minimum off-street parking requirements in multiple Regional Activity Center districts (§47-20.2.D). It includes a number of district-specific parking reductions and reductions for shared parking facilities (§47-20.3).

Tactical Urbanism

The city’s streets and sidewalks code establishes a permit process for parklets (§25A-181 et seq.). Permitting standards address purpose and intent, definitions, permit requirements and fees, application requirements and site plan approval process, construction, operations, taxes and assessments, indemnity and insurance requirements, permit denial or revocation, and appeals.

Food Systems | Urban Agriculture

The city's unified land development code addresses urban agriculture. It provides specific use standards for community gardens and urban farms (§47-18.41).

The ordinance includes a purpose statement and defines urban farms as promoting local production of food for sale to local sellers and consumers, and community gardens as promoting local production of food for use by gardeners. Urban farms are permitted in all non-residential and mixed use districts, and community gardens are permitted in all districts; conditional use approval is required for community gardens located in the parks, recreation, and open space district. A permit is required; the application requires submittal of a management plan. The code provides approval criteria and standards for urban farms and community gardens that address neighborhood compatibility, accessory structures, rain-catching devices, equipment, and signage. A business tax receipt is required for urban farms.

"Urban farm" and "community garden" are also defined in the Definitions section of the code (§47-35.1).

There is no parking requirement for community gardens; urban farms require 1 space per 4 employees and a Type II loading zone requirement (§47-20.2).