Photo provided An artist’s rendition of front and back of Wallace Street duplexes.
City officials this week approved requests that will allow two new duplexes on the city’s east side.
The Columbus Board of Zoning appeals on Wednesday approved a pair of conditional use requests to allow duplexes in an area zoned Residential: Established (RE).
The properties are located at 1953 and 1959 Wallace Ave., which are currently vacant. The property at 1953 is a front lot with 1959 to the south.
The board also approved a development standards variance at 1953 Wallace to allow the duplex to have three off-street parking spaces, one less than what is required.
The zoning ordinance requests a total of two parking spaces per dwelling unit. The applicant, Dustin England, noted there are also two additional parking spaces along the roadside, although those are essentially free-game to anyone who gets there first, board member Zack Ellison observed.
“We’re trying to revitalize the east side of Columbus,” England told the board. “There’s a need on that side of town for affordable housing.”
Melissa Begley, assistant planning director, mentioned that both both properties used to be one lot each. But in 2023, another applicant, who is not England, requested that one lot be added to each property, resulting in the current total of 4 lots.
“The (previous) applicant mentioned building single-family residential lots there,” per Begley. “Now that being said, he did sell those lots, so the applicant before us today is not the same person.”
Each duplex will be a two-story building, with each unit at 970 square-feet in size.
The future land use map identifies the area as residential. It’s predominately made up of single-family residential homes, but there are two other properties that had been converted into duplexes as well, according to Begley.
During public comment, some neighbors said they weren’t opposed to the duplexes but were concerned about the amount of parking and adding more cars in an area where a road connecting to Wallace Avenue is more of an alley. One neighbor was worried about the future occupants of the duplexes taking up their parking if they have guests.
According to the planning staff report, the Columbus Fire Department said they didn’t see any “emergency response related concerns” about getting to the properties.
“Those alleys are very skinny,” Ellison said. “I don’t know what kind of traffic they actually have around there, but it wouldn’t be my preferred route. I drove down it just to see what it looked like.”
England withdrew a previous developmental standards variance he had submitted for 1959 Wallace to reduce the off-street parking from the required four spaces to three, but an architect was able to rework the lot and find space for that fourth spot.
The approval of 1953 includes conditions regarding the site layout and that the structure “shall have a Wallace Avenue facing front facade,” along with some specifications regarding the architectural design.
