City approves church zoning reform.

The City Planning Commission has unanimously voted to approve zoning reform to better regulate community facilities such as medical offices and houses of worship and reduce their undesired effects on low density residential neighborhoods.

The proposed changes complement the Bloomberg administration's other zoning initiatives to protect the character of the city's suburban style residential neighborhoods

The CPC approved the zoning change, proposed jointly by the Department of City Planning and the City's Council's Land Use Committee, and sent it on to the City Council for final review. The Council is expected to vote on the measure in August.

The amendment is designed to bring relief to communities from increasingly large medical offices that have been permitted as of right under current zoning, raising traffic and other neighborhood concerns.

It changes parking requirements for houses of worship that have become increasingly more regional but have not provided adequate parking, burdening lower density neighborhoods.

At the same time, the zoning amendment recognizes the value of such community facilities, and, with changes to minimize land use conflicts, creates new opportunities for them to locate in districts that can more easily accommodate their size and parking requirements.

The joint effort of the Council and City Planning on this measure underscores the importance of the issue to low density neighborhoods in the city.

The key changes in the citywide community facilities regulations include: increasing off-street parking requirements for houses of worship, distinguishing between those that serve a local vs. regional audience and adding flexibility for houses of worship to meet these new requirements; prohibiting large medical facilities in single family districts and restricting their size in one- and two-family districts;

Eliminating or reducing permission for certain community facilities to obstruct rear yards; requiring parking lots for community facilities with 10 or more spaces to be screened with planting strips in lower density districts; permitting houses of worship as-of-right in M1 districts; increasing the allowable size of community facilities in commercial districts mapped within R3-2 districts;

Amending use regulations for houses of worship, ambulatory health care facilities, and clarifying that college or school dormitories are limited to students.

The changes are intended primarily to limit the size of certain community facilities, and their related parking and traffic impacts, in the city's lowest density residential neighborhoods while continuing to allow them ample opportunities to locate where land use conflicts would be minimized.