A revised Village of Northport zoning ordinance and three amendments were adopted unanimously by the village council at its regular meeting July 11.
According to Northport Village Council Manager Jim Dyer’s report, the current zoning ordinance was adopted 18 years ago, and the planning commission has been considering revisions to the ordinance since 2014, however, work to completely revise it began in 2018. After numerous planning commission meetings and public hearings regarding zoning in the village, the council took action to approve the revised ordinance.
The revised version does not contain any changes to the zoning map and only revisions to the text were considered. In Dyer’s report, he said the major revision is “to switch to a form based approach to zoning regulation that is intended to permit a wide variety of building types so long as they are consistent with the type of building forms pictured in the ordinance.”
“The two primary focuses of the zoning ordinance are to kind of create a consistent historic look within the village number one, and number two, to create some flexibility for some additional housing and the possibility of smaller and affordable housing as well…” Dyer said.
Keeping in mind future development and barriers to attainable housing was important in the revision process, as the ordinance does permit homes to be built on smaller lots and increases the amount of area usable for buildable space in most districts from 30 to 40%, ultimately encouraging smaller houses and more density within the village residential district.
“For example, we eliminated any square foot requirement for a single family dwelling, which will permit smaller houses, which might assist with attainable housing. It’s not intended to impact people that have existing residences,” he said. “Leelanau County overall is facing a housing crisis and people that are in the retail industry for example and some of the service industries are not able to afford to live in the village that they work in. We’re trying to encourage that. We can’t make people do that and force people to do that, but we can change zoning requirements to make it easier to do that sort of thing and that’s what we’ve done.”
Nicole Arbury, former village planning commission chair, said at the July meeting that in the years that the planning commission reviewed the more than 100 page-long zoning ordinance, new terms were added and definitions were changed for clarity.
“Basically we’re looking at over 600 minimum collective hours that were spent on this document,” Arbury said at the meeting. “Those people are Laura Cavendish, Jane Gale, Bob Newell, Kathy Wessell, and John Woomer. Each person brought their different perspective, personal expertise, or experiences to add to the discussion. This is a living document, we’re hoping to wrap it up and have a really clean document, but there will always be changes…” In the first amendment approved, it’s explained that in the former zoning ordinance, the core commercial district (C-1) provides that single family residences are a use permitted by right. The amended version eliminates this as a principal permitted use, but still permits two family dwellings. The intent of the modified ordinance is to encourage development of retail and commercial spaces within the C-1 zone. Language approved regarding existing single-family homes in the C-1 district also helps them to remain lawful and be granted permitted use.
However, there are numerous single-family residences currently existing in the C-1. While the new ordinance would permit these residences to continue as lawful nonconforming uses, this status would restrict the expansion, or reconstruction of an existing single-family residential use within the C-1 zone, the proposed amendment reads.
The second amendment addresses treatment of “accessory structure setbacks” regarding lighting and property lot lines. With the additional revision, the reduced setback permitted for accessory structures and garages by this section can only be applied to a structure used for storage purposes. Exterior lighting is not permitted more than eight feet above mean grade level and must also be shielded in a manner to prevent it from shining outside the property lot line. And any interior lighting must be shielded in a manner to prevent it from shining outside the property lot line.
“If you’re allowed to build that close to your neighbors property lot line, you have to control your lighting, that’s basically what this says,” Dyer said at the meeting.
The third amendment addressed technical corrections in regard to political signs, transient housing, and parking. It was amended to remove any reference to restrictions on political signage and noted that the table of permitted uses should be corrected to require a special use permit for transient housing in all districts.
To view the village’s revised zoning ordinance in its entirety, go to https://villageofnorthport. net/village-council/.
