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The commission so far has informally agreed to reduce the allowable number of unrelated people in a rental unit from five to three and require each rental unit to have at least two parking spaces.
The current city code requires 1.5 parking spaces per rental unit. Parking space requirements are rounded up when they end in 0.5. That means current zoning, for example, requires the owner of a three-unit apartment house, with five unrelated people living in each unit, to have five parking spaces.
That is impractical and is one reason the commission began examining the issue earlier this year, reviving action on a new ordinance it drafted in 1999 but never passed. If passed, it will replace a code written in about 1960, said Mark Moeller, city planner.
Increasing minimum parking to two spaces and reducing the maximum number of unrelated people to three would balance out need with construction and reduce the number of cars parked on streets near Winona State University, Moeller said.
City code bars residential homeowners and renters from parking cars on grassy front lawns because it is unaesthetic, Moeller said. The code likely will retain some requirement for green space in front of homes, thereby limiting the location and size of new parking lots.
The new code also would require parking plans from owners when they expand or convert the use of dwellings.
More off-street parking surface would reduce the amount of green space per lot and increase the amount of impermeable surface, causing more runoff. How this might affect property owners' storm water runoff taxes, which are based on square footage of hard surface, is unclear, Moeller said.
The new ordinance also would further impinge a growing trend toward more rental housing, Moeller said. Of the approximately 10,500 housing dwellings in the city, 3,700 dwellings are for rental, he said. Those don't include many rentals operated by the Winona Housing and Redevelopment Authority.
The city has reviewed other cities' occupancy and parking ordinances, and Moeller expects to have something in writing for the planning commission to approve at one of its two meetings next month.
The commission also will need a grandfather clause to deal with property owners in the middle of building new homes and apartments or changing the status of current buildings. The city may have to grant variances for unusual situations. Moeller said "it gets a little bit fuzzy" about where to draw the line for grandfathering.
The city Planning Commission next meets June 7 on the third floor of City Hall.
