Akron City Council agreed Monday to eliminate lot size requirements to build new homes, a change that city officials hope can spur development and help fill in gaps in neighborhoods where houses have been demolished.
The change means homebuilders won’t need to ask permission to build houses on lots that were previously considered too small — those fewer than 4,000 square feet for a single-family home or 7,000 square feet for a duplex. While rules about parking, zoning and how close to the property line a house can be built remain, there are no longer restrictions that would keep a house from being built on any lot in the city because it’s too small.
“I think it’s just common sense,” Planning Director Kyle Julien said after the vote. “It’s land we had decided as a policy matter didn’t have value and now it has value.”
Many of the properties that can now be built on previously had homes on them, before changes in the 1980s made them unbuildable without special approval.
Julien said, over the next year, he hoped to sell 20 city-owned lots for new housing that could not have been built on without the rule change.
Akron builders can immediately take advantage of new housing rules
He said already, the policy change will help speed the process for a home that The Well Community Development Corp. is building on Upson Street on a smaller lot. Now, the organization won’t have to get special approval from the planning commission to move forward.
Zac Kohl, the executive director of The Well, said last month that the organization owned six lots in Middlebury that were considered unbuildable because they were two small.
“We would like to build on those,” Kohl told City Council in September. “Our neighbors want us to build on those lots.”
Mark Greer, a member of City Council, said the larger lot sizes in neighborhoods where homes had already been built were a vestige of redlining and meant to keep people of color out of certain neighborhoods. He said the 13-0 vote helps to correct a past wrong.
“I think this is a very important step in the right direction,” Greer said.
Sherbondy Hill, West Akron could benefit from more home construction
Akron Mayor Shammas Malik said it was Julien’s persistence that led to the measure’s passage. Julien made the case for the change at ward meetings across the city before it was introduced to City Council several weeks ago, but some council members worried that they would lose control over housing decisions.
With the change, Julien said, Akron could begin to market properties in desirable areas like the East End, where he said the city owns about 50 empty lots that are no longer considered substandard. It could also make a difference in neighborhoods like Sherbondy Hill and West Akron, Julien said, where development patterns mean houses have historically been built more closely than modern rules allowed.
The city planned for the opportunity to build more houses on skinnier lots, including a narrow house, as part of a series of ready-to-build plans that were rolled out earlier this year.
Julien said the new policy will help builders respect the bones of existing neighborhoods, building houses that match while also taking advantage of infrastructure that already exists.
“It’s just about efficiency,” he said.
