Ames soon may undergo a new zoning plan that will allow for new growth of the city.

Herman Quirmbach, Ames City Council member, said the council has been discussing zoning and land-use changes for quite some time.

“About six years ago, the city undertook a process that led first to a revision and updating of its land-use policy plan,” he said. “Subsequently, to bring the zoning into compliance with the land-use policy plan, we rewrote the whole zoning code. The final step is to apply the new zoning code to a map of the city.”

The first draft of the map will be reviewed by the council on Dec. 7. The final map should be up for approval sometime this winter.

Brian O’Connell, director of planning and housing for Ames, said the Iowa State campus will have a change in zones.

“Currently, much of the land that is the Iowa State University campus is high-density residential, which doesn’t make very much sense,” he said. “The new zoning is a government/airport district. It’s a zoning district that is going to be applicable to a property that is owned by a government entity, so it is going to more accurately reflect the land.”

He said the city won’t have any say on how the government/airport district land is used.

Quirmbach said the new code will change the names of many zones but does not really alter the “underlying zoning code” of current city areas.

“People are pretty happy with the existing residential areas, and we don’t want to muck those up,” he said. “Mainly, the thrust of the new zoning code is to deal with the new areas that will be added to the city.”

Newly built Somerset, located north of 24th Street on Stange Road, is one of the areas affected by the new code, he said.

The idea is for Somerset and other areas added to Ames to be built according to the “village concept.”

“We’re creating two new zoning designations that will apply only to the new areas,” Quirmbach said. “One is called village residential, and that is designed to foster what is called a neo-traditional village.”

Density will increase to incorporate more houses into an area, he said.

“[Increased density] means you can get around more feasibly by walking; you don’t have to get around by automobiles,” he said.

Quirmbach said the city hopes to mix different kinds of housing within the same neighborhoods.

“The idea is to bring together different housing types, different affordability levels — basically to bring together people of different backgrounds and economic levels,” he said.

In addition to village residential, another new zoning designation will be added, he said.

“The other type of new designation for the new areas is suburban residential, and that’s going to look more like a traditional suburb,” he said.

“We have also adopted for that a minimum density requirement, the idea being you don’t want things to get too spread out.”

Quirmbach said the city council welcomes feedback on the new zoning code and proposed map.

“We’re trying to be responsive to people’s concerns, and I think we’ll accommodate many of them,” he said. “The idea is for us to be able to deal more effectively with the new growth areas over the next 15 [to] 20 years.”