With its eclectic mix of architecture, buildings dating from the early 1900s to today, small businesses owned by people of many ethnicities, affordable housing next to trendy restaurants, vibrant art scene and multiple community gathering spaces, Public Road is quirky—and uniquely Lafayette.

But that’s in danger of changing. 

On Aug. 18, Lafayette’s city council is scheduled to vote on a new zoning and land use code that would:

• Allow the historic section of Public Road between Emma and Spaulding streets to be developed with 3-story, 75,000-square-foot big boxes—more than six times the size of any building that exists there today. 
• Encourage scrape-offs of Public Road’s small buildings that provide affordable rents for our local mom-and-pop businesses, replacing them with market-rate commercial/residential megabuildings with the potential for high vacancy rates. 

We don’t support this proposed zoning, which is called OTX 3. Instead, we support a zoning called OTX 1—with a 2-story building height cap—that would stretch along the historic core of Public Road from Baseline to Spaulding. 

This OTX 1 zoning would ensure:

• New buildings could only be a maximum of about 55% bigger than the largest existing buildings—as opposed to the nearly 500% size increase the proposed OTX 3 zoning would allow.
• No building would be taller than what already exists.
• Any new building would be required to have commercial space on the first floor, which ensures Public Road keeps producing sales tax. Retail, office or residential could be built on a potential second floor.

We’re asking Lafayette city council to keep Public Road’s quirky character and stop big box development by:

• Approving OTX 1 zoning on Public from Baseline to Spaulding
• Keeping building heights on Public at 2 stories, or 30 feet tall 

Photo credits: left: Vicky Uhland; right: Iftikhar Alam