05/25/2026
Your letters continue to have an impact. Please continue to write in, even if you've written before. This latest letter below addresses events at the recent meetings of City Council and Land Use Control Board, and also changes that will make the new zoning work better for the city. Send the email to the addresses that follow the letter. Send us questions, and mark June 11 on your calendar as the date to attend the next LUCB meeting when the first vote on the zoning will be held. Thank you!
Elected and Appointed Officials:
At the May meetings of LUCB and the City Council, DPD announced they are separating the voting on the UDC text from the voting on the comprehensive zoning map. The real purpose is to circumvent the requirements for public notice to citizens whose homes and neighborhoods are being rezoned by the comprehensive rezoning map. The present UDC plainly requires public notice by mail for everyone affected by the changes in all 14 planning districts. The public notice regulations are there to preserve the rights of citizens to participate in the land use approval process. DPD's procedural change is an attempt to allow what's not allowed. Please do not support this last minute change in the rules governing Comprehensive Rezoning that removes public participation.
We continue to share many of DPD's goals—density in the core, streamlined developing, walkability. However, we see a grave mistake in the proposed plan's disregard for what is working in Memphis neighborhoods. Many neighborhoods have worked diligently since the 1970s to achieve stability. DPD's actions risk reversing what's been accomplished through the hard work of property owners and neighborhood associations. This is particularly harmful in this age of corporate, international landlords. We encourage DPD to focus on the areas not working and to recognize and support the areas that are.
We see no benefit in removing the "residential corridor" status that protects many of our most beautiful, tree-lined streets. This status prevents commercial encroachment into the leafy corridors that help define Memphis. We oppose DPD's removal of residential corridors.
We oppose the plan's general shift of approval away from LUCB and City Council to DPD administration. We support public notice, public hearings and the opportunity to appeal to our elected officials.
In addition to the specific changes we've previously shared, here are some steps that can restore a fair process to the proposed regulations:
· Create single family residential districts that preserve established neighborhoods. The only district in the current proposal that preserves existing single-family neighborhoods is the RS district, which is applied to nearly all of East Memphis, to Whitehaven and a bit in North Memphis. NONE—NOT A SINGLE ONE—of the city's oldest, most established single-family neighborhoods is preserved.
· Conduct planning studies of existing RU-1 districts (single-family and duplex) before adding multi-family uses. Some zones will be appropriate for transition to multi-family uses, but others should remain as is or even transition to single family. We support neighborhood realities over textbook theories.
· The new, experimental land uses like cottage courts and pocket neighborhoods should be introduced in a measured way, not allowed by right anywhere. That way, the city can assess the effect of distant, corporate landlords.
· Eliminate administrative authority to approve commercial uses in RN-3. The proposed RN-3 district is applied to very large areas in the older sections of the city including Midtown, Soulsville, Greenlaw, North and South Memphis, but also in the University District and neighborhoods like Orange Mound. By taking the authority from Land Use Control Board (LUCB) and the City Council, DPD is eliminating the voice of the neighborhood citizens, and that is not right.
· Eliminate DPD's administrative authority to approve subdivisions. Restoring the role of the LUCB to approve subdivisions and restoring public notice keeps neighbors involved in their neighborhoods.
· Restore the role of the City Council to approve special use permits.
We are opposed to abandoning the stability that Memphis neighborhoods have achieved since clawing back from the 1970s, and we are opposed to allowing "by right" new styles of multi-family housing in single-family and duplex neighborhoods.
We ask that DPD be charged with:
1) upholding their own UDC and be required to mail notice to all those affected by the comprehensive re-zoning,
2) delaying ratification of their plans until they conduct proper land studies (why have they not yet started?) and citizens' concerns have been properly addressed.
With nearly 2000 signatures on our petition, and with representation from every zip code in the city limits, we know that DPD is incorrect when claiming that only a small group of Memphians oppose their work. You have heard the voices and seen the letters, and it's time DPD acknowledges the reality on the ground that large numbers of citizens from all walks of life in all areas of the city limits do not support DPD's radical proposals.
Thank you,
NAME
NEIGHBORHOOD
Please copy these elected and appointed officials in the above mailing:
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