MARFA — The Marfa City Council is considering six changes to its current zoning ordinance and will hold two public hearings on April 22 and April 25 at 6 p.m. in the Casner Room at City Hall to hear citizen feedback.
In short, the six changes include restricting the construction of more than one kitchen in houses within the R-1 single family residential district, making allowable home occupations less restrictive, reducing setbacks for corner lots, clarifying buildable lot sizes to match the existing plats within the city, allowing residential use of properties zoned industrial and allowing co-use of commercial properties as both businesses and residences.
After public hearings council members may make additional changes to the draft amendments or may choose to move forward with voting to pass the updated ordinance after required readings.
“What we’ll do is have the hearings, have input from the public, ideally, council can have the discussion, they will say what they do like, what they don’t like, any changes they want,” said City Manager Mandy Roane. “The attorney will then draft the new ordinance, once everyone is happy with that ordinance we’ll do the first and second reading.”
In November 2023, Planning and Zoning (P&Z) Board Chair Stephen “Chick” Rabourn presented a report to council on the six proposed zoning changes, which are intended to “improve the city’s ability to deal more efficiently with building applications and actively with certain zoning infractions,” according to the report. Some changes are also designed to allow for more “flexibility of use,” than the current ordinance, which was passed in 2002. The initial P&Z report went through two public hearings before being presented to council.
Since the initial presentation by Rabourn in November, council members have shown support for the updates and have been going back and forth on updating the existing ordinance with attorney Sylvia Firth. At the latest city council meeting, Firth presented draft amendments, explaining that they were in line with the P&Z report and are “ready for the next steps.”
Councilmember Travis Acreman, who previously voiced concern about proposed wording regarding the co-use of commercial buildings change, said he was still “not yet satisfied” with the amendments, stating that they did not adequately address his requested changes, to which Firth disagreed.
“I think this does get it done, it may not say it exactly the way that you want it done, but I think we got there,” Firth said, noting changes to the amendments could still be made even if the process advances to the public hearing stage.
Mayor Manny Baeza asked Raborun, who was in the meeting, if he was happy with Firth’s draft amendments to which he said he was. Acreman said he was ultimately “excited to move forward into hearings” and keep massaging the language.
In a follow up interview Roane explained that most ordinance changes are opening options up, “allowing things that we know are happening, that have been happening for a long time,” like people living above a commercial store they run, and the restrictive rules, like the single kitchen in R1 zoning, will not be retroactively enforced.
The P&Z report and draft zoning amendments can be found on the city’s website, cityofmarfa.com/bc-planning