Chapel Hill considers zero lot line zoning

Wednesday, January 9, 2008
By Clint Confehr

CHAPEL HILL -- Planning commissioners here agreed Monday night to recommend a change in the town's zoning ordinance to allow zero lot line homes.

Such new housing would be allowed as close as five feet to the side of a property owner's lot and therefore a minimum of 10 feet would be required between the homes.

That kind of development is also called garden homes. Elsewhere, zero lot line homes are built like duplexes, dwellings that have no distance between them and a property line that goes through a common wall. That design has been likened to a duplex.

Under a recommendation that's being drafted by town attorney J. Todd Moore, zero lot line homes would be permitted in Chapel Hill where the town has land zoned under the residential classifications of R-2 and R-3.

Both of those zones allow home sites as small as 10,000 square feet, according to Planning Commission Chairman Ed Adams.

"I think there's a need for more dense developments," Adams said after the meeting.

Density of development is typically seen as the number of homes per acre.

"It's obviously a higher density land use," said Lisa Keylon, a state planner assigned to Chapel Hill. "This is not to be utilized for condos or town homes."

Without a vote, planning commissioners directed Moore to refine the proposed amendment to the town's land use zoning ordinance. Moore is to present it to the planners when they meet on Feb. 4. That night, commissioners anticipate voting to recommend the change to the town's Board of Mayor and Aldermen. Its meeting is always a week later.

The town board meets at 5:30 p.m. next Monday. Its next regularly-scheduled meeting would be Feb. 11.

Zero lot line homes have been seen as affordable housing for first-time homebuyers and housing that would be suitable for older couples without children at home, sometimes called "empty nesters." Smaller homes and smaller yards are seen as the attraction.

"I think there's a market for it," Town Administrator Mike Hatten said.

The proposed ordinance is to be written to have some separation between other homes that are located in a traditional fashion in the center of a subdivision lot.

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"Zero lot line homes have been seen as affordable housing for first-time homebuyers" WRONG - zero lot line homes in THIS SECTION of Tennessee are bought by people with equity money, to use as rentals to 'illegals'..just as the old homes in Shelbyville, which is why Shelbyville looks like a slum. This is nothing but zoning the SLUMMING of middle Tennessee. Does Franklin have zero-lot line zoning? How and Where?

-- Posted by double t on Wed, Jan 9, 2008, at 10:50 AM