Greensboro planning staff and the Citizen Advisory Team will be revising the current draft of the Land Development Ordinance, CAT member David Wharton tells me.
The Land Development Ordinance took a drubbing from the overflow crowd at city council chambers on Tuesday, but the "substantive" changes Wharton described to me sound more like minor modifications.
Wharton said the proposed ordinance is likely to be revised to allow developers to have a minimum of two nonresidential uses in an Integrated Multiple Use Development rather than three. The change allows for an Integrated Multiple Use Development "to be a little more smaller, and it gives it some flexibility," Wharton said.
Is the jargon hurting your brain yet?
Under the new ordinance, an Integrated Multiple Use Development is defined as one "containing 3 or more stores, service establishments, offices or other permitted uses planned, organized and managed to function as a unified whole and featuring all of the following: 1) common driveways, 2) common parking, 3) common signs plan, 4) common landscaping plan. Examples are shopping centers and office parks having the characteristics listed above. Such integrated developments may include outparcels for lease or for sale. Any such integrated development may be organized as a condominium or in a manner analogous to that of a townhouse development (with ownernship parcels beneath the building units and with parking and driveways being in common elements owned and maintained by an owners' association)."
Also, as announced by Planning Director Dick Hails on Tuesday, the street connectivity ratio of street segments to street nodes (intersections, endpoints and cul-de-sac heads) is being reduced from 1.4 to 1.3. The ordinance will also be revised to clarify that the street connectivity ratio will include exceptions for subdivisions bounded by abutting communities with street connection conditions, watershed protections and barriers such as railroad tracks that make it impractical to add street connections.
Another change will allow the billboard industry to maintain larger signs. Wharton said the change is in keeping with a goal in the rewrite process to avoid making anyone's property nonconforming because of revisions to the ordinance.
Staff and the CAT will not take out a provision requiring a minimum of one canopy tree in new residential lots. Former Councilwoman Goldie Wells lobbied for the requirement on Tuesday, but council members Danny Thompson, Mary Rakestraw, Trudy Wade and Zack Matheny have indicated in the past that they see little merit in it. Matheny asked Hails at a recent briefing whether the requirement was still in the document.
If council hoped that staff would do the deed, they were mistaken.
Wharton said the controversy surrounding the provision, including the fact that the CAT remains divided over it, means that it's a political issue that will have to be decided by council.
Wharton said today's Rhinoceros Times (I haven't read it) plays off of alarm at the Tuesday hearing and adds to the confusion. The current draft allows for twin homes to be built on corners and on thoroughfares. Twin homes are not duplexes, Wharton said. Homeowners sometimes prefer to site their houses on the property line to allow for more yard area.
"Twin homes cannot be built on a single family lot," Wharton said. "Twin homes are built each on its lot, although they share a partitional wall. The lot size standards for twin homes are about the same as the lot sizes for a single-family lot. You don't get any increased density."
Meanwhile, at-large Councilman Robbie Perkins predicts the Land Development Ordinance will be approved. He said former Councilman Bill Burckley had good intentions in leading the process that resulted in a Unified Development Ordinance shared by Greensboro, High Point and Guilford County in 1992, but six months later developers had already rewritten Greensboro's ordinance to reflect their own needs. Perkins said he sees it as natural that the three entities would have different ordinances: High Point wants to chart it's own course. Greensboro wants to develop higher density infill. The county has no interest in infill. And if the city of Greensboro and Guilford County want to merge planning departments, their land ordinances are already different and updating Greensboro's would create no obstacles.
Showing posts with label Land Development Ordinance rewrite. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Land Development Ordinance rewrite. Show all posts
Greensboro residents fearful of land ordinance rewrite
The message sent to the Greensboro City Council by an overflow crowd attending a public hearing on the Land Development Ordinance rewrite at Melvin Municipal Office Building tonight was, “Whoa.” The predominant sentiment from speaker after speaker was, beware of unintended consequences to changes to zoning designations, don’t increase street connections in residential areas and be careful about increasing urban density.
Kathy Hartsell of Frazier Road and Sharon Hightower of College Park sounded separate warnings against increasing street connections in residential areas.
“The neighborhoods are deteriorating,” Hartsell said, who said a recent “cut-through” in her area has caused problems. “If you’re looking at sustainability in housing, people don’t want to live there. It’s not a positive. People are not walking. You’re not building neighborhoods. They’re not walking their dog. The assisted-living people are not walking anymore. Neighbors are not walking anymore. That’s going to happen in neighborhoods that are going to be connected, so I really hope you take a look at that. (Some back story here.)
Richard Franks, vice president for design and planning for the Koury Corp., argued that residents feel more secure in neighborhoods with limited connectivity. “It’s another case of unnecessary government control,” he said. “I would prefer that you strike this part of the ordinance.” (Last year, Koury Corp. was able to close a street and rezone property to build an apartment complex over the objections of neighbors who complained about increased traffic congestion.)
Mark York, a homeowner and student at Elon Law School, summed up the feelings of many when he said, “You as elected officials are very smart people. That’s why we elected you. If you don’t understand it, rewrite it so you can understand it.”
David Wharton, a member of the citizen advisory team that worked on the ordinance rewrite with staff for three and a half years, urged council to resist the temptation to tell itself the current ordinance was working fine, and implementing a new one would only create unnecessary controversy.
“ If I could make an analogy with the auto industry, that is exactly the rationalization General Motors used for years,” Wharton said. “They stuck with the same engineering and business practices that had served them well in the past, they ignored the changes that were going on around them, and we all know what happened to GM in the end. If we ignore the changes in land-use practices that our competitor cities are responding to and adopting and simply stick with the old and familiar, we risk becoming the General Motors of southeastern American cities.”
A proponent of new-urbanist design, Wharton is a frequent critic of the Triad Real Estate & Building Industries Coalition, or TREBIC, and one of the advisory team members who is not a member of the real estate profession.
TREBIC’s president, Marlene Sanford, indicated that the Land Development Ordinance rewrite is a rare opportunity for cooperation.
“We should all go out and buy lottery tickets because David Wharton and I agree on hardly anything,” she said. “His analogy about General Motors is really spot-on.”
Sanford said TREBIC is not ready to endorse the rewrite because she has not had an opportunity to review the final document, but “generally speaking, we do support the ordinance and want to adopt it as soon as is prudent.”
She described street connectivity requirements as “a sticking point.”
Donna Newton, advisor to the Greensboro Neighborhood Congress, indicated her organization is also generally supportive of the ordinance rewrite.
Former Councilwoman Goldie Wells, a member of the Citizen Advisory Team prior to her election to council in 2005, spoke in favor of a new requirement for developers to plant one canopy tree in each new residential lot that has come under attack by the developer industry and from some council members. Wells ticked off a number of benefits from trees: enhanced property value, energy efficiency, shade, privacy, food production and animal attraction.
“Research indicates communities with more trees report lower crime rates and lower levels of anxiety,” she added. “There’s a real difference between east Greensboro and west Greensboro when it comes to trees. So I want you to remember: We need the trees. Please keep this in the ordinance.”
The ordinance rewrite appears to be running into political trouble that has nothing to do with its merits.
District 5 Councilwoman Trudy Wade asked how the Citizen Advisory Team was formed, and then answered her own question: The members were selected by the city manager, with input from council. In fact, then-City Manager Ed Kitchen appointed the members in 2005. Wade ran for council in 2007 on a platform of holding the city manager more accountable. In 2009, she succeeded in having Kitchen’s successor, Mitchell Johnson, fired.
Bill Burckley, a political consultant who worked on the campaigns of every sitting member except for District 1 Councilwoman Dianne Bellamy-Small, complained that the rewritten land development ordinance would result in three of his properties becoming nonconforming. Burckley is also a former council member.
“This whole process is a staff-driven process,” he said. “This is not a city council-driven process.”
Burckley called himself the “daddy of the UDO,” referring to the current ordinance, whose formal name, Unified Development Ordinance refers to the fact that it is uniform to Greensboro, High Point and Guilford County.
“We’re throwing away 20 years of mutual cooperation. If it’s such a good ordinance, why didn’t we bring in High Point and Guilford County? The answer is, it’s not a good ordinance.”
UPDATE: More from Triadwatch.
UPDATE 2: Councilman Danny Thompson called me to clarify some matters about Bill Burckley's involvement in his city council campaign last year. Thompson says he doesn't dispute Burckley's assertion that the consultant worked indirectly on the candidate's campaign, "but it was not so much directly like you would a campaign consultant."
Thompson said he did write a personal check for $100 to Burckley on the weekend before the general election. (The expenditure is not reported in Thompson's final campaign finance report; he said he would check with his treasurer to see whether it should be amended.)
Thompson said that on the Friday before the general election, he received a phone call from fellow candidate Mary Rakestraw, informing him that the Guilford County Democratic Party was sending out a mailer promoting Democratic candidates. Rakestraw told Thompson, who is a registered Republican, that Burckley wanted to send out a counter-letter emphasizing that the council elections are nonpartisan. Thompson called Burckley, and agreed to write a $100 check to help cover the cost of mailing the letter out.
Kathy Hartsell of Frazier Road and Sharon Hightower of College Park sounded separate warnings against increasing street connections in residential areas.
“The neighborhoods are deteriorating,” Hartsell said, who said a recent “cut-through” in her area has caused problems. “If you’re looking at sustainability in housing, people don’t want to live there. It’s not a positive. People are not walking. You’re not building neighborhoods. They’re not walking their dog. The assisted-living people are not walking anymore. Neighbors are not walking anymore. That’s going to happen in neighborhoods that are going to be connected, so I really hope you take a look at that. (Some back story here.)
Richard Franks, vice president for design and planning for the Koury Corp., argued that residents feel more secure in neighborhoods with limited connectivity. “It’s another case of unnecessary government control,” he said. “I would prefer that you strike this part of the ordinance.” (Last year, Koury Corp. was able to close a street and rezone property to build an apartment complex over the objections of neighbors who complained about increased traffic congestion.)
Mark York, a homeowner and student at Elon Law School, summed up the feelings of many when he said, “You as elected officials are very smart people. That’s why we elected you. If you don’t understand it, rewrite it so you can understand it.”
David Wharton, a member of the citizen advisory team that worked on the ordinance rewrite with staff for three and a half years, urged council to resist the temptation to tell itself the current ordinance was working fine, and implementing a new one would only create unnecessary controversy.
“ If I could make an analogy with the auto industry, that is exactly the rationalization General Motors used for years,” Wharton said. “They stuck with the same engineering and business practices that had served them well in the past, they ignored the changes that were going on around them, and we all know what happened to GM in the end. If we ignore the changes in land-use practices that our competitor cities are responding to and adopting and simply stick with the old and familiar, we risk becoming the General Motors of southeastern American cities.”
A proponent of new-urbanist design, Wharton is a frequent critic of the Triad Real Estate & Building Industries Coalition, or TREBIC, and one of the advisory team members who is not a member of the real estate profession.
TREBIC’s president, Marlene Sanford, indicated that the Land Development Ordinance rewrite is a rare opportunity for cooperation.
“We should all go out and buy lottery tickets because David Wharton and I agree on hardly anything,” she said. “His analogy about General Motors is really spot-on.”
Sanford said TREBIC is not ready to endorse the rewrite because she has not had an opportunity to review the final document, but “generally speaking, we do support the ordinance and want to adopt it as soon as is prudent.”
She described street connectivity requirements as “a sticking point.”
Donna Newton, advisor to the Greensboro Neighborhood Congress, indicated her organization is also generally supportive of the ordinance rewrite.
Former Councilwoman Goldie Wells, a member of the Citizen Advisory Team prior to her election to council in 2005, spoke in favor of a new requirement for developers to plant one canopy tree in each new residential lot that has come under attack by the developer industry and from some council members. Wells ticked off a number of benefits from trees: enhanced property value, energy efficiency, shade, privacy, food production and animal attraction.
“Research indicates communities with more trees report lower crime rates and lower levels of anxiety,” she added. “There’s a real difference between east Greensboro and west Greensboro when it comes to trees. So I want you to remember: We need the trees. Please keep this in the ordinance.”
The ordinance rewrite appears to be running into political trouble that has nothing to do with its merits.
District 5 Councilwoman Trudy Wade asked how the Citizen Advisory Team was formed, and then answered her own question: The members were selected by the city manager, with input from council. In fact, then-City Manager Ed Kitchen appointed the members in 2005. Wade ran for council in 2007 on a platform of holding the city manager more accountable. In 2009, she succeeded in having Kitchen’s successor, Mitchell Johnson, fired.
Bill Burckley, a political consultant who worked on the campaigns of every sitting member except for District 1 Councilwoman Dianne Bellamy-Small, complained that the rewritten land development ordinance would result in three of his properties becoming nonconforming. Burckley is also a former council member.
“This whole process is a staff-driven process,” he said. “This is not a city council-driven process.”
Burckley called himself the “daddy of the UDO,” referring to the current ordinance, whose formal name, Unified Development Ordinance refers to the fact that it is uniform to Greensboro, High Point and Guilford County.
“We’re throwing away 20 years of mutual cooperation. If it’s such a good ordinance, why didn’t we bring in High Point and Guilford County? The answer is, it’s not a good ordinance.”
UPDATE: More from Triadwatch.
UPDATE 2: Councilman Danny Thompson called me to clarify some matters about Bill Burckley's involvement in his city council campaign last year. Thompson says he doesn't dispute Burckley's assertion that the consultant worked indirectly on the candidate's campaign, "but it was not so much directly like you would a campaign consultant."
Thompson said he did write a personal check for $100 to Burckley on the weekend before the general election. (The expenditure is not reported in Thompson's final campaign finance report; he said he would check with his treasurer to see whether it should be amended.)
Thompson said that on the Friday before the general election, he received a phone call from fellow candidate Mary Rakestraw, informing him that the Guilford County Democratic Party was sending out a mailer promoting Democratic candidates. Rakestraw told Thompson, who is a registered Republican, that Burckley wanted to send out a counter-letter emphasizing that the council elections are nonpartisan. Thompson called Burckley, and agreed to write a $100 check to help cover the cost of mailing the letter out.
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