The Algood Municipal Planning Commission voted Thursday to recommend a zoning amendment that restricts duplexes to R-2 residential zones as a conditional use while adding specific landscape buffer requirements for properties bordering single-family homes.
Staff Planner Tommy Lee presented the revised proposal after the City Council requested further study on a previous recommendation that allowed duplexes in R-1 residential zones. The new plan eliminates the option for duplexes in single-family R-1 districts and requires a rezoning process for any new developments.
“Basically what we have done is we have eliminated the conditional use in R1 and we have bumped the permitted use in R2 down to a conditional use,” Lee said. “Now obviously this can be tweaked however you feel necessary, but this is a little bit more restrictive than the first proposal that we sent to the council.”
Under the new guidelines, duplex lots must be a minimum of 15,000 square feet with a front setback of at least 35 feet. Lee said the regulations also mandate at least eight parking spaces and a maximum lot coverage of 40 percent.
“It allows you to pick where you’re going to allow the duplex by rezoning to R2, by public, by traffic, do the people around it want it or not want it, is it a good fit,” Lee said. “This gives you another rezoning option that would allow it to go to a duplex but not go beyond that.”
Officials clarified that rezoning a property to R-2 for a duplex does not open the door for high-density developments. The specific classification prohibits the construction of apartments, condos, or townhomes.
“If we put this in R2, they are still not getting apartments and they’re not getting condos, townhomes, or any zero-lot lines,” Lee said. “They have to go to R3 to do that and that would be a complete rezoning to R3.”
During the discussion, Commission Member Sandy Brecker proposed an amendment to require a buffer between duplexes and existing homes. The commission agreed that developers must install either an opaque fence or evergreen trees when an R-2 zone abuts an R-1 single-family zone.
“As a homeowner I know that how people would feel about a duplex not knowing what’s going to be like that they do need a buffer to kind of make them feel like they have some protection,” Brecker said.
The motion passed by a vote of 5-1 and will now advance to the City Council for consideration.