A group of nearly two dozen Greenwood residents critiqued design concepts for the city’s zoning code update Tuesday.
Greenwood officials held their second workshop for the city’s unified development ordinance update at the city center. The UDO is a set of ordinances and rules that guide development in the city, including the city’s zoning code and subdivision ordinance.
This workshop focused on design concepts, including test sites showing what could be possible under changes to the UDO. Twenty-or-so residents gathered around poster boards with sticky notes and pens in hand, giving feedback on five test sites, walkable centers and additions to existing homes.
Residents also had to keep three questions in mind when giving feedback: 1) Does the concept proposed fit the site? 2) What do or don’t they like about it? and 3) Should the concepts proposed be required or left up to individual developers?
Most zoning regulations, generally, tend to be penalizing as people try to penalize or control development — despite good intentions, said Tony Perez, a senior associate for Opticos Design.
“We’re not saying Greenwood’s is like that, but because of that, across the country, what we found is that zoning rules can be penalizing, rather than, ‘Let’s just make what we want,’” Perez said. “So what we found is, well, ‘How do we make zoning rules to produce what we want?’ One [way] is to work in situations like this, work with the community, ask you questions, show you pictures, show you drawings, get your feedback.”
The two overwhelming ideas Opticos has heard are “wing” and “half-story” housing features. The wing feature involves adding a small addition to a home to increase floor areas without making the home too big, while the half-story feature involves adding a pitched roof with “dormers” — windows that project vertically from a sloping roof — to create another occupiable story to a home without increasing the building’s height, he said.
Both of these could concepts could be incorporated into Greenwood’s UDO, including having it explicitly stated that they are allowed. Residents were supportive of allowing the wing and half-story options, although one expressed concern about building code compliance for half-stories. Another resident suggested Greenwood offer permitting relief to make additions to existing homes more feasible.
The five test sites allowed showed residents concepts that could be explicitly allowed in the UDO. None of the concepts featured on the site tests are actually in the works.
One test site featured a vacant parcel that could be redeveloped on West Broadway Street. Residents were given three development scenarios: a duplex with an accessory dwelling unit, or ADU, a duplex with a single-story ADU and a triplex with an ADU.
One resident said he preferred the duplex options compared to a triplex. He later added that the design having two front doors on the same side for the triplex was his concern, along with it looking too much like a multi-family development.
Another test site was several parcels of vacant land in front of Greenwood Fire Station 91 on Main Street, west of the train tracks. Two courtyard buildings and a sixplex were suggested as possible redevelopment options, with Perez saying these developments would address the city’s missing “middle housing,” or a range of multi-unit, house-scale buildings that fit within single-family neighborhoods designed to fill the gap between detached homes and large apartment complexes.
It also addresses preferences residents highlighted during the last UDO workshop: a want for open space in courtyards and walkable sites, Perez said.
Concerns noted by different residents were about increasing traffic in the area and the proximity to the train tracks. One resident said they liked how the parking for the buildings would be in the rear and not on Main Street, while another suggested having a parking space maximum in the UDO instead of a minimum.
Redeveloping areas of the large parking lots of the Greenwood Park Mall with mixed-use housing and shops was another test site where the residents gave feedback. They also gave feedback on a 67-acre neighborhood featuring single-family detached townhomes and other housing products that could one day be built on Rocklane Road, if annexed into the city. This idea would also address missing middle housing, he said.
One resident expressed concern about whether there was a demand for townhomes or commercial spaces in the neighborhood. Later, a different resident suggested there was a need to update the zoning code to make it easier to divide existing lots.
The last test site focused on the redevelopment of a Walmart on State Road 135, if it were to ever close. A mixed-use area could replace it, with office and commercial buildings along State Road 135 and housing further away from the road.
Perez emphasized repeatedly throughout the workshop that all of the ideas proposed in the test sites are possible under the current UDO. However, the UDO is written in a way that doesn’t make it clear they are options, he said.
The goal of the update is to make it transparent and clear to the community and the developer what is permitted and what isn’t, he said.
After taking part in the activity, residents were also given the chance to ask questions and offer suggestions outside of the test sites. One resident suggested connecting trails to the Greenwood Park Mall, while another expressed support for the idea of redeveloping large parking lots.
Another resident did express concern about discrepancies between lot sizes and actual parcel sizes in Greenwood. Gabe Nelson, Greenwood’s planning director, said there are some areas with discrepancies that city boards have seen come up during zoning petitions. It’s a lot of work to clean it up, but city staff hope to do so as they work with Opticos Design on the UDO update.
“It’s something that we hope with Opticos to clean up as we go through this, to make sure that things are accurately zoned for the size that they are,” Nelson said. “And maybe we’re not looking so much at the lot size, but the use or the intensity of use. There are different ways you can regulate, not all of them are tied to the lot size. Ours right now heavily relies on lot size, which is something that we’re looking at with Opticos.”
Residents who weren’t able to attend Tuesday’s event can still take in the activities. The activities, along with a survey, have been posted online at greenwoodudo.konveio.com/design-workshop-2-january-27-2026.
Once all the feedback is gathered, city planning staff and Opticos Design will analyze the results and begin drafting the body of the new UDO — a process that will take some time, Nelson said.
“Part of what we’re looking at is, will we need to add zoning districts? Do we have the appropriate zoning districts for our community?” he said. “And we are working to create both [auto-dependent] and walkable districts or zones in our zoning ordinance.”
Following this city staff will schedule a “First Draft Hybrid UDO presentation,” followed by a” Second Draft Hybrid UDO presentation.” This will be followed by the public hearing phase, where they will receive a recommendation from the Advisory Plan Commission and a final vote from the city council.
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