Jackson P&Z weighs new LDR tools to curb development impacts

Jackson’s Planning & Zoning Commission on March 4 reviewed “visioning options” for potential Land Development Regulation (LDR) amendments aimed at reducing development impacts and responding to concerns about downtown scale, empty “lights-off” lodging, and intense basement construction. The discussion was framed as a policy work session (not a quasi-judicial permit decision) and built on direction already signaled by the Town Council, according to a planning staff report in the meeting packet. Planning and Zoning Commission Regular Meeting Agenda Packet.

Among the tools staff laid out: revisiting the town’s 2:1 workforce-housing bonus (including potentially changing the ratio, requiring a deeper affordability-style deed restriction instead of a workforce-only restriction, capping deed-restricted unit sizes, and limiting how much 2:1 bonus floor area can be used in a single project). Staff also flagged potential standards to increase third-story stepbacks in certain zones (rather than broad height-limit reductions), and a set of “basement regulations” that could cap basement stories/depth and count habitable basement floor area toward maximum building-size limits while still excluding underground parking. Planning and Zoning Commission Regular Meeting Agenda Packet.

On land uses, staff highlighted concerns that short-term-rental condos in the downtown Lodging Overlay can function more like investment properties than “hot beds,” potentially leaving inactive space in key areas. One option presented was to cap short-term rentals to a percentage of a project (with no specific percentage proposed yet). The packet notes the Town Council expressed interest in exploring a STR percentage cap, along with deeper analysis of the 2:1 bonus, basement limits, and a comprehensive Design Guidelines update (likely a FY27 work-plan item). Planning and Zoning Commission Regular Meeting Agenda Packet.