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Downtowns nationwide are bedeviled by a glut of one type of real estate and a dearth of another. They have too much vacant retail space, and too little residential space.
Larisa Ortiz, managing director of public nonprofit solutions at design consultancy Streetsense, offers a contrarian perspective on how to resolve the imbalance.
“There is an elegant solution: putting residences, rather than just commercial uses, in the ground-floor spaces of certain buildings,” Ortiz writes in Planning magazine. “Yet many communities have zoning codes that restrict ground-floor residential uses in their downtowns, with planners and policy makers asserting that it undermines sound planning principles and diminishes pedestrian comfort.”
Ortiz notes that some mid-sized cities are embracing the new reality. In 2022, Champaign, IL, lifted zoning regulations prohibiting ground-floor housing on selected blocks and streets within its three central business districts.
And in 2021, Grand Rapids, MI, amended its code to allow ground-floor residential in certain business and commercial districts. The change allows greater flexibility for about half of the city’s 6,000 commercial- and business-zoned properties.
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