A new Lock City 'roadmap' is almost ready for a council vote

Dec. 5—At the Stevens Street bridge over the Erie Canal, look northwest on the horizon and you'll see rows of houses in the city's West End. Cross the canal on the pedestrian walkway and you'll step into a quiet residential neighborhood with a local bank and retail co-op.

For Kathy O'Keefe, the owner of the co-op, the neighborhood could be so much more.

"If you look at Buffalo, you have Hertel, Elmwood, Allentown and now Canalside. In Lockport we have the West End, the North End, the East End, downtown. Each neighborhood is a destination," O'Keefe observed, "and people will come and build, if they think they can."

The City of Lockport's draft revised Comprehensive Plan and updated zoning code could be the impetus for the "destination" building that O'Keefe envisions.

"We'll make the whole neighborhood thrive and grow," she says hopefully.

WHAT IS A COMPREHENSIVE PLAN?

According to Heather Peck, director of community development, the city's Comprehensive Plan is like a "roadmap" to the city's future.

"It's a document that is meant to push strategic goals that have been set and hopefully implemented, but it's also a fluid document in that it has to be amended and updated on a regular basis," she said.

Departing Mayor Michelle Roman committed her administration to updating the city's Comprehensive Plan and zoning code in early 2020. She had hoped to see the work finished by the end of her term, but that looks unlikely. While the city planning board on Monday recommended the comprehensive plan update, time is running short for the Common Council to first hold a public hearing on the update and then vote on accepting it this month.

The value of an updated comprehensive plan and zoning code is "it will make things easier for people who want to invest in property," Roman said. As an example, she points to proposed new zoning code that would allow more and different uses of property without the owner having to get prior approval from the city planning board or the Zoning Board of Appeals.

Lockport's existing Comprehensive Plan was approved by the Common Council in 1998, and times have changed. Peck said the proposed, 72-page update sets a new vision for the future and gives guidance to decision-makers how to get there.

"Everything that comes with that vision is clearly identified with very strategic and very specific goals and actions," Peck said.

Roman appointed the members of the Comprehensive Plan Steering Committee in early 2020, but they didn't get down to work until July 2021, because of the Covid pandemic. Roman said the committee met several times with Molly Gaudioso, a consultant from Colliers Engineering & Design, formerly Bergmann architecture, engineering and design.

Throughout the steering process, Peck said, public input in the Comprehensive Plan has been vital. The city has hosted a few public information meetings, the first one in the summer of 2021 and the last one this past August, as well as holding multiple joint meetings of the Common Council and the planning board. Feedback is still being accepted online at https://bartonloguidice.mysocialpinpoint.com/city-of-lockport.

WHY UPDATE THE ZONING CODE?

At the same time that a new comprehensive plan was being drafted, members of the Zoning Code Steering Committee went through the existing code with an eye on ways to make it more clear. Panelist Jim McCann, the city's retired chief building inspector, said the existing code is confusing and contradictory in places, which prevents it from being a "useable" document.

One way the zoning steering committee checked the code was by identifying areas of the city where numerous variances — legal exceptions to the zoning code — have been granted.

As an example, many variances have been granted to allow parking of vehicles on lawns in certain neighborhoods.

"Some areas of the city have very dense housing and variances were needed ... so (the steering committee) went in and corrected that part of the zoning code in that area to allow for it," McCann said. Under the revised code, setbacks for driveways are decreased in order to park multiple vehicles without having to get a variance.

McCann said residents and prospective residents would be able to access the revised zoning code, find their neighborhood easily, and see what is and what is not allowed. It could be they're allowed to place a shop on the bottom floor of a two-story home in one of the newly created "mixed use" neighborhoods.

"Residential neighborhoods aren't going away, but the old (code) was confusing. There will still be residential, but some will be mixed use and the buyers will know that going in," McCann said, mentioning the West End as a good example of where "mom and pop" shops could set up.

TRANSFORMING NEIGHBORHOODS

In the West End, O'Keefe is hopeful that she'll see new neighbors who are willing to take advantage of everything the proposed zoning code update can give with its "project ready" housing and shop spaces, making for a walkable shopping district as well as a residential neighborhood.

Apart from the West End, specific neighborhoods addressed in the zoning code revision include the south and north ends of Davison Road. On the north end, the zoning of the old county infirmary property would be changed from Reserved Area, allowing only parks and golf courses as uses, to R-1, single-family residential area. On the other end, at and near the intersection of Davison and Lincoln Avenue, the zoning of office space would become "mixed use," where apartments and offices would be allowed in the same buildings.

Mixed-use zoning would also be applied in the downtown district, and mixed use neighborhoods would extend east of Washburn on Union Street, Chestnut Street and East Avenue to Exchange Street, as well as portions of Adam Street.

ALMOST THERE?

The steering committees finished their work on a revised Comprehensive Plan and zoning code on Oct. 6, following public input sessions on both documents in late August.

But a final public hearing on both documents has been pulled off the Common Council's agenda twice since October.

Megan Brewer, zoning officer, said that's because the planning board still had questions about the documents, and during the November meeting they tabled a vote on recommending the documents pending more conversation.

On Monday, the planning board voted to recommend both, with two conditions: Home-based business operators should continue to come before the board for a special use permit; and the revised zoning code should bump up the percentage of land that a property owner can occupy in a low- or medium density neighborhood. The revised zoning code calls for a maximum of 50% occupation of a lot in a low-density neighborhood, and 30% in a medium-density neighborhood and the planning board recommended raising those maximums to 60% and 40% respectively.