The City of Akron is proposing changes to its housing rules that could make it easier to build new single-family and multi-family homes in neighborhoods, allow the construction of in-law suites or carriage houses in backyards, and keep grandfathered-in housing types, like apartments on top of stores, that were built before current zoning rules.
The series of proposals are expected to come before City Council later this summer for a vote, said Stephanie Marsh, a spokesperson for Akron. Marsh said in an email that city leaders first want to gather feedback from residents — including in person, at a series of community meetings, and via surveys.
The first meeting is at 6 p.m. today at the Goodyear Branch Library, at 60 Goodyear Blvd., where planning staff will hear feedback as part of the Ward 10 meeting.
The proposals come as the city has been working to improve access to housing. Recommendations from Unify Akron included zoning reform, and the city has already tasked an architect with creating free plans for developers that are pre-approved by the city to try to ease some of the costs of building new homes.
Understand the history: See how housing and development issues in Akron play out and what led to this moment.
Additionally, the city has implemented zoning changes in two neighborhoods, Summit Lake and the Merriman Valley, and hopes to expand beyond them. One of the proposals, to eliminate minimum lot size requirements for homes to be built, is a step toward making those changes on a larger scale.
If the changes are adopted, the end result could be an opportunity to build more dense neighborhoods, something Richard Bancroft said would help bring prices down for new construction.
“The biggest key to increasing the housing stock is to eliminate barriers,” said Bancroft, the executive officer for the Building Industry Association of Northeast Ohio, a trade organization for home builders that advocates for housing affordability. “There’s got to be an increase in the density for it to really work.”
He said Akron’s proposals do that by encouraging the construction of duplexes and triplexes, allowing more homes to be built on smaller lots and making it easier to rehabilitate properties that no longer conform to current rules and that would have had high barriers to being made liveable again.
“These are all positive steps,” he said. “It’s a great step forward for Akron. It could be a model for the region.”
Eliminating lot size requirements to build smaller homes, more duplexes
The city did not make anyone available to discuss the proposals, but a website makes the case for the three ideas meant to ease barriers to housing.
The first, the elimination of minimum lot sizes, was presented to the Planning Commission Monday. In its description of the issue, the city said that, in older neighborhoods, homes are already built closer together than the current requirements: for single-family homes, lots must be 4,000 square feet or larger; for buildings with two or more units, lots must be at least 7,000 square feet and at least 60 feet wide.
The city itself owns hundreds of vacant lots that are smaller than those requirements and that once had homes on them, the proposal says. City-wide, the Easing Barriers to New Housing proposal says, there are about 2,000 lots that could be more easily developed if the lot-size requirements went away.
Allowing smaller lots would improve neighborhood walkability and allow for smaller homes for people who are downsizing or simply don’t want to maintain large houses and yards, the proposal says.
It would also make it easier to build duplexes, triplexes and accessory dwelling units, like carriage houses, on a single lot. It would also remove the requirement that doors for multi-family buildings be on the side, not the front.
And it would mean neighborhoods that are zoned for small apartment buildings would be able to add them more easily, because the plan would reduce a requirement that 30 percent of the land be usable open space, changing it to 10 percent.
Additionally, it would reduce the required width of a driveway by one foot, to nine feet, making it easier to fit a home on a narrow lot.
“If it increases density, then it’s a great thing,” Bancroft said. “The key is a first-time buyer product, an affordable product.”
He said Akron has a “tremendous” housing shortage and these could be among the steps to increase both availability and affordability.
The second proposal would increase the number of neighborhoods where duplexes, triplexes and accessory dwelling units are allowed.
In its explanation, the city said planning employees regularly field phone calls from people who want to add more housing to their property, like a woman who wanted to build a cottage in her backyard to move into so she could rent her home to her child and grandchild. That’s often not allowed.
“We also need to give builders more flexibility if we are going to rebuild our neighborhoods,” the proposal said. “Recalibrating our zoning rules and moving away from exclusive single-family homes gives builders more options, making it easier to bring population back to neighborhoods.”
Making it easier for properties that are grandfathered in to stay up-to-date
And in the final proposal, the city suggests changing the rules for properties that were built before the new zoning rules but are no longer in compliance.
Those grandfathered-in projects are still allowed as long as they’re occupied — but if they’re vacant for two years, according to the current rules, they have to comply with existing requirements.
Doing so can be impossible, the proposal says — there’s no way to add more land to meet a minimum lot size requirement that didn’t exist when a property was built. Or it can be difficult and expensive, like changing a duplex to a single-family home.
With a conditional use permit, property owners can get the OK to keep an out-of-date use without making the required changes, but the process for approval can be time-consuming and expensive.
The proposed change, which would apply only to areas that now allow residential use (including apartments above stores), would eliminate the two-year vacancy window to comply with existing rules. In its explanation, the city said there are many instances where such buildings have been reinvested in after extended vacancies, and it wants to ensure those opportunities continue to exist.
Bancroft praised the proposal, calling it a “big help.”
“It keeps that property performing under its previous conforming use,” he said. “It’s better, maintaining that use for that property.”
Additionally, the proposal said, it makes it more likely that people will invest in such buildings because banks can be reluctant to lend money for projects that are grandfathered in. That reduces the pool of people who can afford to invest in such projects.
“So, the way our zoning code treats residential buildings that were built before some of these zoning changes were made actively discourages investment in existing housing that could otherwise provide people with a safe and affordable place to live,” the proposal says. “We are letting potentially good housing stock to go fallow.”
Akron housing changes likely to be ‘effective’
In a statement, Mayor Shammas Malik said the city wanted to undo restrictions that make it hard to build new homes and invest in existing ones.
“These proposed changes are about modernizing our policies, supporting neighborhood revitalization, and making it easier for residents to find housing that fits their needs,” he said.
As a whole, Bancroft said, the city’s ideas are very progressive. While he said there may be changes that are needed depending on the outcomes, he praised the city on its efforts to increase housing opportunities.
Across the state, Bancroft said, there’s a shortage of between 275,000 and 300,000 homes, many of them in Northeast Ohio.
He said, too, the efforts could help reduce the price for new construction — which, nationwide, is $414,000. For every $1,000 reduction in price, Bancroft said, 100,000 more people are able to afford a property.
What the city has proposed, he said, goes farther than other governments that are working toward reforms.
“What Akron is doing, I support it,” he said. “They looked at their market and what it needs. These are going to be effective changes.”
In addition to participating in surveys or attending community meetings where planning staff is present, interested people can email zoning@akronohio.gov to share their thoughts. The city did not provide a list of public meetings that staff would be attending, but Marsh said ward meetings would likely be among them.
