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A concepts report looking at how changes to Flagstaff city code could address its climate and housing goals was presented to Flagstaff City Council last week.

This report is the second stage of the ongoing Code Analysis Project.

The city has been working on a project known as LASS/CAP over the past year -- or the Land Availability and Suitability Study and Code Analysis Project. The LASS and the first diagnostic portion of the CAP were finished in the fall of 2024, with final code recommendations from the CAP expected to be completed later this year.

Both studies interact with various priorities in the city’s 10-year Housing Plan and 2045 Regional Plan, as they are intended to be a foundation that will allow Flagstaff to encourage development in a way that supports its housing and climate goals.

The LASS studied the land in the City of Flagstaff that is currently vacant or underutilized to see how it could possibly be used for housing development. It found that the expected maximum total yield across identified opportunity sites is 5,402 housing units under the current zoning.

The CAP's goal is to identify areas in city code that could be changed to better encourage housing development and meet the city's climate goals, particularly affordable, infill and higher-density.

The code concepts report was presented to the city's Housing and Planning and Zoning commissions in late January, followed by the Feb. 4 presentation to city council. It has also been brought to other city commissions.

The report's findings “tells us that the existing development environment is extremely challenging with the high cost of construction and land,� Tiffany Antol, zoning code manager, told Council. “Codes are only a piece of this. ... We have an extremely challenging environment. Cost of land here is high, the cost of labor, the cost of materials. Those are things that are just outside of our control.�

Planning director Michelle McNulty said the concepts report focused on the “highest-priority barriers,� mainly in the zoning code, though she noted different groups have been looking at other areas of city code for the project.

A list of 14 key code barriers identified in last year’s diagnostics report include the resource protection overlay, affordable housing incentives, the winter parking ordinance and transportation impact fees.

“They do have overlapping issues, and that is one of the fundamental things that you’re going to find about the zoning codes," Antol said during the Housing Commission presentation. “It’s not just one standard alone; it’s how the standards overlap on top of one another that makes certain points of the development process difficult or why it makes the development harder to get across the line."

Antol noted that none of the changes presented are “set in stone� and that each scenario could be adjusted in multiple ways.

At the end of the presentation, she asked the members of city council to provide staff with direction on which outcomes to prioritize for Flagstaff’s climate and housing goals. Other specific questions the Council members were asked to consider included whether they support reduced parking requirements or if certain zoning districts should be treated differently.

Determining priorities

The report outlines three scenarios investigated by city staff to see potential results of different changes to the code. Each focused on a different outcome, and the presentation included details of the potential effects on housing density, capacity and carbon emissions among others.

One change in all three scenarios would permit single-use residential buildings in commercial zones, removing the conditional-use permit that is currently required for such developments. Changes to middle-housing types as required by HB 2721 from 2024 are also in all three, with Antol noting these are required by state law by the start of 2026 and will be brought to Council as a separate item.

The first scenario focuses on incentives related to both housing and sustainability meant to make including efforts toward those goals more appealing to developers. It adjusts existing incentive programs to do so.

Antol referred to this as a “higher-risk strategy� in terms of housing affordability, with the council agenda noting that the way the incentives are designed will affect how often developers choose to use them.

The next two scenarios would be more effective in increasing density, the report found, as the first depends on decisions from the developers to add that density.

The second two options both raise density requirements to 10 to 80 units per acre from the current requirements of six to 29 units per acre -- which Antol described as "low" in the presentation -- while lowering parking requirements to between one and one and a half spaces per unit. (Currently, it is one to three.)

Scenarios two and three would both still include incentives for sustainable design and affordable units.

Scenario two added sustainable design requirements, the cost of which is offset by increased maximum densities and lower minimum parking requirements.

The agenda notes that, similar to the incentive programs, a balanced design would also be needed for this to succeed.

It had the highest reduction in emissions of the three scenarios (about 60% less emissions for sustainability incentives projects than current code, compared to about 35% less for the other two options). 

The third scenario focuses on the “economic feasibility of housing development to increase overall housing supply� through allowing higher-density development, without the additional sustainable design requirements. Results for this were similar to the second scenario, though with improvements coming in housing rather than sustainability.

This scenario had a 103% increase in net new units across all areas, compared to a 68% increase in scenario two and a 34% increase for the first option.

Considering solutions

The presentation also included discussion of ideas to change specific parts of city code to move toward housing and climate goals. 

All of these were presented as items where city staff was seeking input from the council on whether they would be options worth pursuing. Antol explained that each recommended change to code that comes from the CAP would need to go through a separate outreach and approval process before being adopted.

Council plans to discuss its input when the CAP is brought to a future meeting.

Items discussed in the presentation included narrower street designs, changes to the winter parking ordinance and resource protection overlay, and adopting an incentive program with different sustainable design options to include in developments, such as transportation demand management (which encourages modes of transportation other than cars).

Potential changes to the winter parking ordinance included designating streets for snow removal, alternating sides of the street with restricted parking or limiting restrictions to when there is a weather event.

Five people made public comments on the code concepts report during the Feb. 4 city council meeting. While they shared varying thoughts on the proposed scenarios and housing development, three asked Council to encourage staff to present them with all potential solutions as the Code Analysis Project continues.

The CAP is expected to be brought back to Council this spring.

The recording of this meeting can be found on the City of Flagstaff's YouTube page, with discussion of the Code Concepts Report beginning around 4 hours and 50 minutes into the Feb. 4 meeting.