City of College Station Issues
June 2023
The City of College Station will host 3 meetings about Middle Housing (see March notes below) rezoning. June 7 and 14 are virtual meetings; June 21 is a face to face meeting. They will unveil plans and obtain feedback about areas of the city they plan to rezone into middle housing districts. These zoning districts are designed to be connected to residential housing areas like our neighborhood. For more details and how to sign up, go to the city's website. To see additional information and maps, see the College Station Association of Neighborhood website.
April 2023
Support for Enforcing the City's Occupancy Ordinance of no more than 4 unrelated in one home
March 9, 2023 -- City Council meeting (background for meeting April 13 described below) -- A fellow citizen, Mr. Fred Dupriest, and about 15 other people spoke during the Hear Citizens portion of the city council meeting about what needs to happen to make sure that the city's occupancy ordinance enforcement actually occurs. The current ordinance says there will be no more than 4 unrelated living in a residence. City staff have been working on this concept of enforcement and Mr. Dupriest shared a study done in Southgate showing the lack of movement on this issue and the need to ramp up enforcement. Dozens of people attended the meeting from across College Station to show support for enforcement of these city ordinances.
For an overview of the issue and three years of work done on this matter, Mr. Dupriest has created a video describing the issues and their attempt to work with city officials to resolve the issues.
As a result of the feedback and information presented at the meeting, including portions of the above video, City Council asked city staff to develop a workshop for them during a future city council meeting.
April 13, 2023 -- City Council meeting -- starts at 6 p.m. There are two issues of interest in this meeting:
1. City Council vote on the Dominik rezoning described below in March 2023 information. This is early in the regular agenda (item 9.3), coming several items after the workshop on no more than 4 unrelated.
2. Workshop for staff to share with City Council members the issue of code enforcement related to no more than 4 unrelated people living in one house.
Essentially, this workshop is the first item on the agenda after consent agenda, so it could be within the first 30 minutes of the meeting. Some requests have been to change the process for collecting evidence (e.g. let neighbor evidence be used vs. only staff evidence), create zoning to prevent incursion into single family neighborhoods, and strengthen enforcement and punishments.
To sign up to speak, or to submit written comments one either issue, use this url: https://forms.cstx.gov/Forms/CSCouncil. If you plan on attending, be aware that while the meeting starts at 6 p.m., there is no way to accurately determine when the agenda items will be reached. City Council meetings are also televised live on the College Station tv channel, channel 19.
March 2023
A rezoning request for property at 721-723 Dominik Drive was passed. This owner requested to use the city's new "Middle Housing" Zoning vs. the Duplex Zoning that currently exists along Dominik. This new zoning was created by city council in October 2022. In an article written by the city prior to the city council approval of the new zoning, there is a drawing showing the types of housing allowed in "Middle Housing". The city sent the below letter to the Neighborhood Association describing the proposal and the date of the Planning and Zoning meeting on March 10, 2023. It was approved and will go to City Council on April 13, 2023.
During P&Z, members were concerned that middle housing was not designed to be a property by property zoning, rather a block of properties. However, no regulations currently exist to prevent this type of housing zoning to be block by block.
In response to Association inquiries about this rezoning, Mr. Jeff Howell, Senior Planner in the City of College Station sent the following information:
"In response to your questions regarding the Middle Housing zoning, here is a link to the District Purpose Statement for Residential Zoning Districts which generally describes each zoning district. Specifically for Middle Housing, this be found at Section 5.1.I.:"
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"I. Middle Housing (MH).
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This district is designed to be flexible and provide a variety of housing options by-right. It allows for detached single-family residences, duplexes, townhouses, Courtyard Houses, Live-Work Units, and Small and Medium Multiplexes. The MH District is intended to accommodate a walkable pattern of small lots, small blocks, and a well-connected street pattern adjacent to commercial and neighborhood centers. Middle Housing developments are ideal on the edge of more intense urban and multi-family areas to serve as a transition to single-family zoning districts. Structures in the MH district are individually platted, distinguishing them from the MF Multi-Family district."
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"Permitted Uses within the Middle Housing zoning district can be found within the Use Table (Section 6.3.C), with permitted uses identified with a “P” under the Middle Housing “MH” column. Also, the various dimensional standards based on the housing type within the Middle Housing zoning district can be found within a table in the Residential Dimensional Standards, specifically Section 5.2.B. (Middle Housing Product Types and Dimensional Standards Table)"
"With regards to buffering, this can be found in Section 7.7.F., which includes the buffer requirements between Middle Housing and Single-Family Residential districts, as well as others. Here is a link to the table which includes the information:"
"For the Rezoning application on Dominik, the applicant is requesting to rezone the property to allow for the existing structure and split-lot duplex use to remain. Since it was indicated no modifications to the existing structure are proposed at this time, we have not received any plans as part of the rezoning request. This request will be going before the Planning and Zoning Commission for a recommendation (prior to City Council) on March 16th and the staff report, which includes more information about the rezoning request, will be posted on the City of College Station website on March 10th. A link to the Planning and Zoning Commission meeting information will be made available here. The meeting referenced in April is the With regards to the existing structure, it was already constructed as a split-lot duplex it would not need the rezoning to remain. However, with regards to the existing use, since the structure has more than four (4) bedrooms, the rezoning would allow it to be classified as Shared Housing, which permits the occupancy to exceed more than one family. Shared Housing is a permitted use in the Middle Housing zoning district.date for when the item will be going before City Council for a final decision."
"With regards to the existing structure, it was already constructed as a split-lot duplex it would not need the rezoning to remain. However, with regards to the existing use, since the structure has more than four (4) bedrooms, the rezoning would allow it to be classified as Shared Housing, which permits the occupancy to exceed more than one family. Shared Housing is a permitted use in the Middle Housing zoning district."
