Friday, January 29, 1999
Cincinnati seeks ideas for downtown
Zoning code being updated
BY LUCY MAY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Cincinnati city planners know the downtown zoning code isn't the kind of hot topic that draws hundreds of citizens to public meetings.
But maybe it ought to be.
Zoning is the tool that shapes how downtown looks. The zoning code outlines where businesses locate. Where parking lots go. What types of retail and entertainment businesses are welcome.
“If you want to do something downtown other than simply come to work in the morning and go home at night, you might want to pay attention to the zoning code,” said Don Mooney, a veteran city planning commissioner who helped create the downtown code in 1987.
For the first time since then, city planners are preparing for a major overhaul of the code that governs what goes where in downtown Cincinnati.
Mayor Roxanne Qualls thinks it's about time.
“We have a zoning code that's better suited for a 19th century city than a 21st century city,” she said.
The city's zoning code was written to “make sure bad things didn't end up next to good people,” she said, under the assumption that certain businesses would be nuisances.
She argues that the focus on excluding businesses leads to a “lifeless downtown.”
Modern cities, she said, should concentrate more on luring businesses downtown and tailoring zoning to make downtowns more inviting places to be.
Even such things as attractive signs and parking can make a difference. For example, the sign on Nicholson's Tavern & Pub on Walnut Street is an attractive exception to the city's rules on “signage.”
The sign for Columbus Life Insurance on Fourth Street is more of a sculpture — a ship that protrudes from the building. It, too, was a zoning exception.
And the landscaped bench near Graeter's on Fourth Street was developed to disguise a parking lot behind it. Through that exception, the developer got the parking, and the city got a small, urban gathering place.
City planners want citizens to help the city decide
what downtown needs: More gardens? More day-care centers? More public art?
So-called “bonus provisions” in the zoning code can help the city get more of those things by allowing developers to put up bigger buildings if they include such amenities.
Planners also want to make some codes more flexible so developers who want to do more than what's required don't have to jump through hoops.
Mr. Mooney also wants the city to look at what changes in the code can be made to encourage more residential development downtown, something that's also been a pet project of the mayor's.
Bottom line, Ms. Qualls said, is the city must update its zoning codes to encourage business development and have “zoning by appearance” rather than “zoning by exclusion.”
“You can have a great-looking auto garage shop that people use and need,” she said. “And it contributes to the economy.”
The key is to make sure such businesses look good, because appearances do matter when it comes to making downtown inviting, she said.
“Those are the elements that make people want to be downtown, and you can't legislate it, and you can't micromanage it,” she said.
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