By BECKY KISER
Hays Post
Hays city commissioners Thursday night approved 26 recommended changes to the city’s Unified Development Code, which was adopted six years ago.
Public Works Director Jesse Rohr said the UDC is a “living, breathing document” and to expect more updates in the future.
“We want to be able to provide flexibility for developers, builders, contractors, and citizens as they do projects," Rohr told the commission. "We fully intend to relax regulations and remove barriers to building and different projects, and overall, lessen the need for interpretation.”
The UDC codifies the city’s land use through zoning and subdivision regulations.
The recommended changes were made in the areas of zoning, signage, landscaping and a miscellaneous category, following earlier approval by the Hays Area Planning Commission.
“We want to made sure we are protecting what needs protecting and getting out of the way when we can get out of the way,” said Toby Dougherty, city manager.
One area where the city will "get out of the way" is window sign regulations. All references to window signs will be removed.
"A lot of businesses do signage in their front windows. You'll see it downtown. You'll see it on Vine Street. The signs are changed frequently a lot of times.
"We don't see any reason to enforce that sort of thing, inside the business, in the windows," Rohr said.
A change that was discussed extensively by the planning commission, according to Rohr, was rear yard setbacks in residential areas.
"We are proposing to reduce, in most cases, rear yard setbacks for residential properties to 15 foot. There's some cases now where it's 20 foot, some where it's 25 foot.
"We want people to be able to build on that property as much as they can. Lots are expensive. Housing is expensive. If we can make a change like this that will allow them to maximize building on the lot, that's what we'd like to do."
The changes were identified by Planning and Development Superintendent Curtis Deines and his staff, with input from developers, contractors and builders.
After several discussions, the planning commission conducted a public hearing in 2021 about the proposed changes. The city commission reviewed those changes at two work sessions.
"This gives me confidence that enough people have looked at this," said Vice-Mayor Michael Berges.
The 26 UDC amendments approved by the city commission are available here. The entire Unified Development Code can be seen here.
Mayor Mason Ruder was absent from the meeting.