History of current recommended changes to the zoning in Old Louisville.

A brief history of the Old Louisville Neighborhood Council recommendations for changes to the Traditional Neighborhood Zoning of Old Louisville - what these were and what these became.

In 2002 the city of Louisville added to its existing body of zoning codes and land uses classifications a new planned neighborhood form and zoning district called the Traditional Neighborhood Zoning or TNZD, which was designed to fit the particularities of the Old Louisville/Limerick Historic Preservation District to foster the careful preservation, rehabilitation and redevelopment of this unique neighborhood, in essence to link zoning to a historical neighborhood form.

In late 2011, as Old Louisville/Limerick was recovering from the recession and foreclosure crisis of the previous mid decade, the Old Louisville Neighborhood Council (OLNC) under its chair at that time, Joan Stewart, commissioned its Zoning and Land Use Committee to gather an ad hoc group to review the TNZD in the light of concerns that the commercial components of the neighborhood, particularly around Fourth and Oak streets, were not recovering and remained largely undeveloped, often vacant, and squalid in appearance. The questions at hand were whether the TNZD had too tightly restricted the commercial uses of property and too conservatively partitioned commercial from residential, and whether the TNZD might be amended to stimulate more, and more useful, commercial development in 
the neighborhood without harming the residential uses and investment, the latter residential component being the great success story of the TNZD and its allied Landmarks regulations.

The TNZD Review Group first met on January 24, 2012. Its membership included ten residents of Old Louisville and five Metro officials representing Codes & Regulations, Planning and Design Services, Metro Council, and the Mayor's office. From a set of 15 broad concerns it identified a short list of issues in the form of questions it would investigate and about which it would ultimately make recommendations to the OLNC. These questions were:

-what is best use of residential properties of particularly large square foot area?

-does TNZD encourage desirable enterprise in the commercial areas of the district?

-is there enough area available along Oak Street for increasing desirable enterprise?

-can single-family residences allow live/work use?

-are the geographic boundaries that delineate use areas too hardened?

-can residential homes in transition areas be redeveloped for retail space?

-are new taverns, prohibited in residential areas, desirable in the commercial areas?

Over that year the number of issues was reduced to a main interest in expanding the TNZD listings of commercial uses allowed in the mapped commercial areas of Old Louisville.

In January 2013 additional issues of B&Bs and signage were brought into regular discussions.  By the end of 2013 the only specific change to the TNZD that was promoted to the OLNC and approved by vote was a motion to modify the signage regulations. 

In January 2014 the TNZD Review Group announced to the OLNC that it had completed its review and it was preparing the documentation of its recommendations for the expanded lists of commercial uses in the mapped commercial areas. It was intended that these recommendations would be the basis for a motion and discussions by the OLNC. The documentation was not forthcoming until the fall of 2014. By that time a new chairman for the OLNC, Howard Rosenberg, had gathered a group of business interests “to look at what currently supports businesses in Old Louisville and what currently does not support businesses.  I have asked the group to come back to the OLNC with specific recommendations.” Howard Rosenberg: email of April 3, 2014.

On September 23, 2014, an ad hoc business task force, extra to the Old Louisville Neighborhood Council [OLNC] but advising OLNC chairman Howard Rosenberg, presented to the OLNC a motion to modify the TNZD in these terms:

...[that] permitted uses for all business properties [in the Old Louisville Traditional Neighborhood Zoning District] 

        be changed to match the permitted business uses in other similar urban districts in Metro Louisville.

The motion was hotly debated in the OLNC throughout October and November and it was deemed too poorly constructed and worded to survive any scrutiny. In December of 2014 a new motion was offered; it recommended

...[that] the permitted use list from C2 zoning classification be incorporated...as the permitted use list 

for Neighborhood Center and Neighborhood Center Edge Transition [mapped] components
        [and] the permitted use list from the C2 zoning classification minus Outdoor Entertainment, which would be 

permitted only by Conditional Use Permit, be incorporated...as the permitted use list for Neighborhood

Transition [component.] We recommend adopting the permitted use list prepared by the TNZD 

Review ad hoc committee for Corner Commercial within the Neighborhood General component.

The December motion reflected a compromise that gave a nod to the strong opposition that was voiced against any incursion of the extensive C2 commercial uses into the residential Neighborhood General component as well as consistent anxiety about outdoor entertainment in commercial transition areas close to residential homes and life.  

It was this motion -the scope of which was limited to expanding only the permitted commercial uses in the mapped commercial components of the Old Louisville TNZD- that the OLNC approved by vote February 24, 2015

and gave to Councilman David James to promote to the Metro Council in tandem with the November 2013 OLNC

approved change to signage regulations.

On March 26, 2015 Councilman David James introduced to Metro Council a resolution that changed the scope of the motion approved by the OLNC.  The main points of the councilman’s resolution can be summarized as:  

“[R]equesting the Planning Commission, through its staff in Louisville Metro Planning and Design, to evaluate the 
Traditional Neighborhood Zoning District (TNZD) regulations particularly as those regulations relate to” 

 

#1 signage on properties within the TNZD and...

#2 the list of land uses currently set forth in the TNZD Plan Report to determine effectiveness in meeting TNZD goals

#3 the current Neighborhood Center boundary on the TNZD Plan map to determine whether it should be extended  

[Resolution #40 Series 2015]

A startling novelty not discussed before nor approved by the OLNC is point #3: extending a current mapped boundary.

The OLNC did not ask for such a measure, in fact, during the months of debate the motion was 
repeatedly and explicitly presented as not involving a map change. The OLNC approved only 
a measure for new lists of uses in the currently mapped commercial components of the neighborhood.
Objection to this enlargement and distortion of the scope and intention of the original OLNC motion
was delivered to Councilman James when he attended the OLNC monthly meeting of April 28, 2015.
An objection was also made by email to the counsel for the Planning Commission, county attorney Jonathan Baker on April 29, 2015. 

This year, at a January 12, 2016 public hearing in Old Louisville, and again on January 28 before the Metro Land Development & Transportation committee, the Planning and Design staff presented their recommendations for changing the TNZD which included not only a redrawing of the mapped boundary of the Neighborhood Center commercial area at Fourth and Oak streets as prompted by Councilman James’ resolution #40 but, also, a staggering enlargement and redrawing of a second commercial component, the Neighborhood Center Transition extending its mapped boundaries over blocks and blocks of stable residential neighborhood along the full length of Oak street from 7th street on the west to the I65 on the east.  

Compiled by C.T. White, who was the scribe for ZALU and the TNZD Review Group. The above account was compiled from the minutes and notes of the OLNC, ZALU, & TNZD Review Group meetings as well as from public emails & minutes distributed broadly on the OLNC listserv. 

Minutes for the OLNC monthly meeting minutes for year 2014 can be found at

http://oldlouisville.org/olnc-meeting-minutes.

Year 2015 OLNC meeting minutes can not be found at the oldlouisville.org website, which is out of date;

these minutes can be found at http://www.secondstreetna.org/6.html