COLUMBUS, Ohio — It was a historic evening at Columbus city hall.
After two years of meetings and hundreds of community comments, Columbus City Council passed the new proposed zoning code legislation Monday evening.
It’s been 116 days since the new zoning code proposal was first drafted. After years of planning and lots of discussion, Columbus city council voted to pass the new zoning code also known as “Zone In” Columbus City Council President Pro Tem and chair of the zoning committee, Rob Dorans, has been a champion of change for the zoning code since the beginning. He said the community’s input made a large impact on this legislation.
“I have just been very, very pleased that so many residents have taken the time to engage with the city and particularly city council on this topic. Again, I think the legislation is better because we had hundreds of people, you know, give their thoughts, share their comments, good, bad indifference,” said Dorans.
The zoning code has not been changed in 70 years, making it out of date, especially with the amount of growth the city of Columbus faces today. The purpose of the new zoning code is to match the growth of the city with more housing of all price points, reduce environmental impacts and to give the city an overall face lift. According to the Department of Development, “Zone In” is going to make the city more equitable and sustainable as well as create more housing.
“This updated zoning code is really going to direct how we grow going forward,” said the Michael Stevens, director of the department of development.
‘Zone In’ will occur in three phases and will take years to change. The zoning legislation that was passed Monday evening was just phase one, which includes developing over 80,000 new housing units. Something Council President Shannon Hardin is passionate about because within the next two decades Columbus will need hundreds of thousands of new housing units.
“We all know that in the next 25 years, nearly a million people will move to central Ohio and a few hundred thousand of those folks will end up here in the city of Columbus. That is the fact. It’s not up for debate any longer. We need to build at least 200,000 units in the next 15 years to keep up,” said Hardin.
Although the new zoning code proposal was passed, according to council, residents won’t see any physical impact for another two to five years.