The city of Savannah and Chatham County have added a new zoning district classification called Office-Institutional, a designation that bridges the gap between residential and heavier commercial uses, according to city officials.
As the name indicates, the new O-I designation will be used to allow office uses as well as a limited number of other functions that are compatible with an office environment, such as child care facilities, beauty salons and places of worship.
“The need exists because we didn’t have a purely office category,” said Tom Thomson, executive director of the Metropolitan Planning Commission, whose staff worked on the text for the new zoning.
For example, Thomson said, a dentist office in operation from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. would be a better use next to a residential neighborhood than a late-night restaurant or bar.
Currently, however, the choices available to someone seeking a zoning variance for such an office are much broader, opening the door to heavier commercial use than intended. Thomson said the O-I district fixes this problem.
“The reason we wrote it that way is to make it a bridge district between less intense categories like residential and more intense business categories,” said Thomson.
On May 15, the City Council approved one of its first O-I uses for a property at 5108 Skidaway Road, changing it from Single Family Residential, or R-6, to Office-Institutional to accommodate a proposed child care center.
The county commission also approved a text amendment to add the O-I to its ordinance on May 23.
Thomson said the changes are consistent with proposed changes included in the New Zoning Ordinances, dubbed NewZO, a draft of which is available online at thempc.org.
Other items in NewZO have also appeared before city government recently, including a proposed text amendment to address the growth of short-term vacation rentals, which also lack a specific definition in the older codes.