A request to rezone about 2.6 acres of property, generally located at 1739, 1745 and 1755 S. National Avenue, 1138 E. University Street and 1111, 1119, 1133 and 1141 E. Sunshine Street will be considered by the Springfield Planning & Zoning Commission (P&Z) at their regular meeting Thursday, Dec. 15. The applicant is BK&M, LLC and the request is to rezone from single-family residential district (R-SF) to general retail district (GR) and establish a new conditional overlay district No. 220.

A conditional overlay is a regulatory tool that creates a special zoning district, which is intended to allow a floating zone to be established as an overlay to a base zoning district. A conditional overlay limits particular uses to be established in accordance with specific standards and conditions. A conditional overlay can only reduce the uses of the base zoning district.

Thursday night will be the request’s first appearance before the Planning & Zoning Commission, which is expected to vote whether or not to recommend the rezoning and overlay district, after what is expected to be a long public hearing. The next step would be a public hearing at City Council, followed by a vote at the City Council’s following meeting. The measure does not require a favorable recommendation from P&Z to move forward to City Council.

Due to expected high levels of interest in this case, P&Z is expected to vote to suspend procedural rules to limit speakers to three minutes each and rearrange the order of the agenda to handle other business first, placing this case as the last item of the agenda. The meeting begins at 6:30 p.m. at Historic City Hall, 830 N. Boonville. Those wishing to speak may sign up at the meeting by filling out a speaker card.

The meeting will be live streamed on City View, which can be found on Mediacom and AT&T cable, and also on the Roku and Amazon Firestick streaming platforms. Use the search functionality for the City of Springfield channel. It will also be live streamed online at CityView.Springfieldmo.gov/livestream and on the City’s Facebook page at Facebook.com/CityofSGF. Those keeping track of the timing of the agenda items can also follow the City’s Twitter account at Twitter.com/CityofSGF. Speakers may be limited to three minutes each and will be reminded to avoid repetitive testimony.

The agenda for the meeting is located at https://www.springfieldmo.gov/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Agenda/_12152022-5147?html=true.

For more information, contact Cora Scott, Director of Public Information & Civic Engagement, at 417-380-3352 or [email protected].