Avon updates comprehensive plan with community housing in mind
Town's future land use map now features community housing designations, new district

Town of Avon/Courtesy image
Avon has committed to making 2024 a year for community housing, and on Tuesday, the Town Council adopted new amendments to the town’s comprehensive plan to create more opportunities for local workers. The amendments follow an in-kind decision at the council’s previous meeting to approve community housing-focused amendments to the town’s development code.
The two sets of amendments were initially brought before the council on Jan. 9, the first for adopting amendments to the Avon Development Code, and the second for adopting amendments to the Avon Comprehensive Plan. While the development code amendments passed a second reading during the Jan. 23 meeting, the comprehensive plan amendments were a step behind after some information about them did not make it into the packet at the first reading. They passed on the second reading at Tuesday’s meeting.
The development code amendments include a code text amendment that creates a “community housing” zone district option to enable the town to zone areas specifically for community housing. The community housing zone district designation permits higher-density housing, with all housing located in the zone subject to deed restrictions.
The Avon town code defines community housing as “residential housing which is subject to a deed restriction,” which must be used as a primary residence for long-term use “by qualified persons.” Most of the time, Avon’s deed-restricted housing is available to employees working throughout the county, often with an area median income-related salary cap.
Within the community housing zone designation, there are several options, including medium and high-density housing and mixed-use, each of which has specific permitted numbers of housing units attached.

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The purpose of a community housing mixed-use designation is to create more commercial gathering places for the residents of the community than a commercial hub at the center of a neighborhood.
“It’s really more of a neighborhood associated with the residential type of uses that are being placed there,” said Jena Skinner, Avon senior planner, at the Jan. 23 council meeting.
The commercial elements can also offset the high cost of developing community housing, create a walkable community that is more environmentally sustainable, and reduce traffic and travel time.
Right now, Avon has some underdeveloped properties, including in the town core, where, to patronize commercial businesses, customers have to travel via car or bus to reach them. The goal of community housing mixed-use designation is that these areas might be able to be rezoned and redeveloped within that designation, reaching a more appropriate level of development, providing housing for locals, and creating more activity for businesses.
The changes passed Tuesday include modifying the language of the Avon Comprehensive Plan to include community housing language and updating Avon’s future land use map to show designated community housing zone districts, along with other revisions.

One of the big changes was carving an entirely new district, District 12, out of District 8, the East Avon Preserve. Most of District 8 has an “open space” designation, with just a small parcel permitted to hold community housing. Town staff turned that parcel into District 12.
Though relatively tiny — District 12 measures just six-and-a-half acres, smaller than all eleven other districts in Avon — town staff decided to make it into a new district because isolated as the parcel is by the zoning designations of the areas around it, there was no good way to add the parcel to another patch of land and still give it the community housing designation.
“To make the districts seem uniform and logical from one end to the other is challenging, and any time we make these changes to respond, it ends up being a little bit incremental, like adding onto a house and then adding onto a house again,” said Eric Heil, Avon town manager, at the Jan. 23 meeting. “The preference would be to just add to what’s around there, but what’s around there is two districts that are the Village (at Avon)…and then open space,” Heil said.
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The Slopeside parcel, on Swift Gulch Road, also received the new community housing designation.
The comprehensive plan amendments also include the creation of a gateway parcel on the southern edge of District 6, also known as the Gulch Area district, which runs along the north side of Interstate 70. The gateway parcel will be designed to make the town look uniform and welcoming from the highway and as residents and visitors enter Avon.
The development code amendments were approved by all seven members of the council present on Jan. 23, and the comprehensive plan amendments were approved by all six members of the council present on Feb. 13.