Multi-family sections of NK face rezoning

NEW KENSINGTON: City Council is expected to approve a zoning change this month that might stabilize and eventually eliminate residential density problems in two sections of the city.

Council will give the ordinance its third and final reading during this month's regular meeting Tuesday, July 17.

The Planning Commission designed the ordinance to combat a number of problems residential areas are facing as a result of single-family houses becoming multi-family houses, a cycle that has intensified over the years.

The areas in question, one in Parnassus and the other in the hill district, now are zoned R-2 for multi-family use. The zoning change would transform the areas into R-1 for single-family use.

Mayor Pat Petit said council seems to be behind the ordinance as a method of preventing 'a snowball effect' that already is out of control.

According to Petit and members of the planning commission, residents in the areas that could be rezoned were concerned with a lack of parking spaces and the disrepair of some of the multi-family houses, prompting them to seek a solution from city leaders.

Richard A. Bruni Sr., planning commission chairman, said the planning commission designed the ordinance in response to those concerns and in keeping with the city's strategic plan for development.

'We determined that the only way to stop decline would be to go back to R-1,' he said.

But, Bruni said, the ordinance does not mandate that houses now occupied by multiple families revert back to single-family houses. For that reason there won't be an immediate change in those neighborhoods, he said.

For a multi-family house to revert back to a single-family house, under the ordinance, the landlord must make that decision.

Or, when a third party buys the house, he is obligated to use or rent it as a single-family house.

City property owners seem to favor the ordinance so long as the current multi-family houses are grandfathered in.

John Smittle Jr., of Smittle Development, said members of the landlord association created in the city little more than a year ago favor the ordinance so long as it allows for the multi-family houses to stay.

'We all want to facilitate a good community, however that's done,' he said. 'As long as the (multi-family properties) are maintained properly, there isn't a problem.'

Tim Dimaio, on the other hand, represents a contingent of city property owners who would like to see all residential houses intended for single-family use remain that way, saying he is 'totally against anything that is more than one unit.

'They're too hard to rent and it's too hard to get good people in there,' Dimaio said of multi-family houses.

Bruni said the planning commission explored other options for reducing the density problem but settled on its present course of action because it seemed to be the most effective and less costly endeavor.

Bruni could not say what percentage of the two areas that could be rezoned now are multi-family houses, but that judging from resident testimony, the areas 'have reached maximum density.'

'At least, through this, the problems are not going to increase,' he said.

Michael Aubele can be reached at maubele@tribweb.com