Downtown Regulating Plan
The City of Tonganoxie began a planning process for the downtown area and surrounding neighborhoods in August 2024. The planning process occurred in 3 phases: existing conditions assessing the physical and regulatory context; engagement and goal development working with key stakeholders to develop the direction of the plan; and plan development formulating specific recommendations for the plan and related zoning updates. The process involved public open houses, work sessions and surveys with the downtown stakeholder group, and work sessions with the Planning Commission and City Council. A final draft was reviewed by the Planning Commission and City Council in August 2025, prior to introduction into the official adoption process, which is beginning at the Planning Commission meeting on December 4, 2025.
The plan includes immediate, incremental and long-term recommendations for development and public improvements downtown; strategies to better coordinate the downtown area with surrounding and supporting neighborhood; and specific zoning ordinance updates to enable development that better meets the physical development context and policy recommendations for downtown and the near-downtown neighborhoods.
The key code updates associated with the regulating plan are:
• Updates to the HBD (Historic Business District) that strengthens traditional downtown and pedestrian scaled development and design standards; allow more flexible and mixed uses; and incorporate and update the Historic Business District Design Guidelines.
• Conversion of the east industrial areas (I-LT and I-MD) into a downtown-adjacent industrial district (I-DT). These changes retain all existing uses but update for more downtown appropriate development standards in terms of lot sizes, setbacks, frontage design, and building and use scale. (most uses and lots in this area were “non-conforming” due to I-LT and I-MD having standards that were not appropriate for a near-downtown context)
• Updates of the residential districts, and primarily those currently subject to the R-I (Residential Infill standards). These updates provide a “building type” approach which identifies a range of low- and moderate scale housing options that are compatible with the downtown area and includes building and site design standards that are appropriate for walkable neighborhoods, and which create compatibility across the wider range of housing that is enabled. Based on existing base zoning in this - primarily R-SF and some R-MF-1 or R-MF-2, these updates now correspond to two downtown residential districts: R-DT-1 for lower-scale residential (update of the R-SF/R-I areas) and R-DT-2 for moderate-scale residential and limited mixed use (update of the R-MF-1 or 2 / R-I areas).
The plan also recommends two areas for potential future rezoning based on these updates.
• The 4th Street corridor west of Green Street to just east of U.S. 24/40. This area has some non-conforming uses and, in the past, has been subject of rezoning requests to commercial. This area would best support downtown if rezoned to R-DT-2, which allows a wider range of moderate density housing and some limited mixed use.
• A small area on the southeast side of downtown, currently zoned industrial but has been used and has more potential if incorporated into the core HBD district. This area includes the historic depot property.
Overall, approval of the Downtown Regulating Plan, including the public space plan, the regulating plan, and code updates will enable the city, downtown stakeholders, and private property owners to collaboratively invest in the vision and future of Downtown Tonganoxie.
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