<body><div>QUINCY, Ill. — The Quincy Strategic Housing Task Force is recommending several changes to the city's zoning and development rules in an effort to increase housing opportunities and remove barriers to new construction.<figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=26WNKr_1FdGboGL00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=26WNKr_1FdGboGL00" width="698" height="380" ><figcaption>the director of the Quincy Planning and Development Department</figcaption></figure>The recommendations presented to the Quincy City Council focus on four areas: updating the city's long-range planning documents, reducing parking requirements for multi-family housing, expanding the types of housing allowed in certain zoning districts and modernizing the city code surrounding factory-built housing.Director of the Quincy Planning and Development Department Jason Parrott said the recommendations are intended to address some of the challenges developers face under the city's current regulations.<blockquote>“What this report does is it says here are some of the challenges that are faced in making that a reality, and this is what really the city and other partners need to be looking at to, to result in more housing, better housing, affordable housing, all those different types of options,” Parrott said.</blockquote><h2>Updating Quincy's long-range plans</h2>One of the largest recommendations includes several documents that guide development around Quincy.The task force is asking the City Council to approve and commit funding that updates the city's Comprehensive Plan, Neighborhood Land Use Plan, Zoning Map and Zoning Code.According to the task force, Quincy's current Comprehensive Plan consists of several documents developed between the 1990s and 2020s rather than a unified plan. The city's Neighborhood Land Use Plan is 13 years old, while its Zoning Map and Zoning Code have not been updated in decades.<blockquote>“We would be getting a new concise look at future land use, future growth in areas, commercial, industrial, residential,” Parrott said. “We would have a document that would help lead those efforts. We'd also have a more modern zoning code and an updated zoning map that would really clearly more define our areas where we're looking at growth and looking at our potential, trying to find areas where you can have single family housing, multi-family housing, and really blend that together. That is what that could result in.”</blockquote>The city issued a request for proposals for the planning project in June and received 10 submissions in July.Four firms were interviewed.A contract for the project is expected to be presented to the city council for approval in October. If approved, the city is targeting an 18-to-24-month timeline to complete the updates.Quincy Township, the Quincy Park District, Great River Economic Development Foundation, See Quincy and John Wood Community College have pledged financial support toward the project.<h2>Fewer required parking spaces for multi-family housing</h2>Another recommendation reduces the amount of off-street parking developers are required to provide when constructing multi-family housing.Current city code generally requires two parking spaces per housing unit. The proposed change would reduce that requirement to 1.5 spaces per unit for developments containing three or more units.Single-family and two-family housing requirements would remain unchanged.Under the proposed requirement, a four-unit development would need six spaces instead of eight. A 16-unit development would require 24 instead of 32, while a 40-unit development would require 60 instead of 80.The task force argues the requirement could allow developers to use more of their property for housing or amenities rather than parking, while also reducing construction and paving costs.<blockquote>“You are required to have two parking stalls off the street, so you can't count street parking, for every one of those units, which takes up a lot of space,” Parrott said. “You lose a lot of space to concrete for parking. What the, the task force proposed is to cut that to one and a half. So let's say you have a 10-unit facility and you need to have 20 spaces, now if you have a 10-unit facility, you would only need 15 spaces. Maybe you could utilize that additional space to put another unit or two.”</blockquote><h2>Allowing more housing by-right</h2>The task force is also recommending changes that could make it easier to build duplexes, triplexes and quadplexes in certain parts of Quincy.Under the proposal, two-family dwellings would become a permitted use by-right in R1C zoning districts, which currently restrict development to single-family homes.R2 zoning districts would also be changed to allow up to four residential units by-right. Those districts currently allow up to two units.<blockquote>“You could have a quadplex on those units. Again, you have the same size of a lot, but now you have four families available instead of two families available. So those are, that's another change that could again result in more density,” Parrott said. “Especially with costs right now, it may be where a contractor can say, ‘Look, I can't do a single family home right now. It's just too expensive to build.’ But perhaps if they were going to do a duplex or perhaps they were going to do a triplex, now you might be able to make those dollars work where you can say, ‘Yeah, I can do that. I can rent those out and I can now create three more living units for people because of that density.’”</blockquote>"By-right" development means a project that meets the city's zoning and building requirements could move forward without seeking additional discretionary approval for that particular use.The task force said the changes could encourage what is often referred to as "missing middle" housing, including duplexes, triplexes and quadplexes that fall between traditional single-family homes and larger apartment complexes.<h2>Modernizing factory-built housing rules</h2>A fourth recommendation focuses on how Quincy defines different types of factory-built housing.The task force is recommending updates to the city code to distinguish modular, manufactured, mobile and prefabricated homes.<blockquote>“Our code defines a manufactured home, a modular home, and a prefab home. It has definitions that are older and more out of date,” Parrott said. “What we're wanting to be able to do are create definitions that somebody could read them and say, oh, okay yeah I could build this here. We're wanting to make sure that what we have in our code is modern and up to date and open to people to be able to utilize. The language right now, it's old, it's older language. And so this is a way, one of the areas that the zoning group saw that could be updated to show, hey, these are options in Quincy to be able to build. And we want to make sure that that's clear, concise, and able for people to see that and utilize it.”</blockquote>Under Quincy's current ordinance, some modular and prefabricated homes can be classified as mobile homes based on their dimensions. Currently, mobile homes are restricted to mobile home parks or subdivisions.The task force argues that current definitions can prevent some modern factory-built homes from being constructed on otherwise available residential lots.The proposed changes would distinguish modular homes built to applicable residential building codes and placed on permanent foundations from manufactured or traditional mobile homes built on a permanent chassis.<blockquote>“As long as they've received permission through the, Department of Inspection that it meets the building code requirements, that would be able to move forward, making those definitions more clear and more concise for people to be able to use,” Parrott added.</blockquote>These are still recommendations, meaning changes would require action by the city council.But Parrott tells us, residents could expect the city to vote on the proposal by the end of the year.</div></body>

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QUINCY, Ill. — The Quincy Strategic Housing Task Force is recommending several changes to the city's zoning and development rules in an effort to increase housing opportunities and remove barriers to new construction. The recommendations presented to the Quincy City Council focus on four areas: updating the city's long-range...

New recommendations could reshape housing in Quincy

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QUINCY, Ill. — The Quincy Strategic Housing Task Force is recommending several changes to the city's zoning and development rules in an effort to increase 

New recommendations could reshape housing in Quincy

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