The city’s proposed Comprehensive Plan and zoning code will be revised some more before they’re put to a vote by the Common Council.
Both revised documents were finalized in October 2023, when the city planning board voted to recommend both to the council, with some suggested changes.
Now, after a presentation to the council on Wednesday by Corporation Counsel David Blackley and deputy corporation counsel Anthony Serianni, more changes are being made to the documents.
Mayor John Lombardi III said he does not expect the documents to be voted on by the council until September. Once the changes are put in writing, a public hearing on both documents has to be scheduled.
Among the significant changes:
• A movement to change the residential zoning in much of the city to “one- or two-family use” from single-family (R1) has been halted.
The consensus of the current council is, single-family home ownership is more desirable. Aside from the usual suspicions about absentee landlords and renters having less of a stake in their neighborhood, 5th Ward Alderman Margaret Lupo said facilitation of duplexes may put homeownership out of reach for some people.
“I think it makes it harder for young people to buy a home. I think it’s a problem right now in our city … I think this will take the affordable properties we have now and make them unaffordable,” Lupo said.
The council also nixed a smaller minimum lot size for multi-family houses.
• A movement to change the zoning of Professional Park and the surrounding area, off Davison Road, to accommodate mixed uses — commercial and residential together — also has been halted. The council consensus is that area should remain commercial only.
According to Alderman at Large Kevin Kirchberger, the sewer system can’t “handle” residential use.
“It was built for people being there between 9 (a.m.) to 5 (p.m.), but if you open it to 24/7 with a bunch of families, it’s not going to be able to hold,” Kirchberger said.
• The council decided that marijuana “consumption” sites will not be allowed downtown, but they will still be allowed on industrial zoned property. The plan that the planning board signed off on last fall allowed both dispensaries and consumption sites downtown and in industrial zones.
• The council decided that the planning board should have the power to approve or deny special use permits. Currently the board’s authority is limited to recommending them to the Common Council, which must vote to approve their issue and is not bound by the planning board’s recommendation. According to Serianni, the City of Lockport is one of only two municipalities in Niagara County that does not currently empower its planning board to issue special use permits; the Town of Lewiston is the other.