Category: form-based code

Buggy whips still gone, but protest petitions survive

Bill that would limit N.C. cities’ power to ban projecting garages passed the N.C. House but not the N.C. Senate. This street in Corpus Christi, Texas, features so-called “snout houses.” Photo: Brett VA, Creative Commons

 It turns out protest petitions did NOT go the way of buggy whips, at least not in the just-ended session of the N.C. General Assembly.

Here’s what I wrote last month: “Protest petitions going the way of buggy whips.” But elected officials are nothing if not predictably unpredictable. As The Charlotte Observer’s Jim Morrill wrote (while I was vacationing at the beach) : “Right to protest zoning changes survives N.C. Legislature.“

The bill that contained the end of protest petitions also contained a variety of other regulatory changes. This one will be of particular concern to environmentalists: As the blog for the Real Estate and Building Industry Coalition put it, “For the next year, local governments are prohibited from adopting any new environmental regulations that exceed state or federal law, unless they do by unanimous vote.”  Here’s a link to that REBIC blog item.

The not-loved-by-planners provision that would limit local government’s ability to regulate the placement of doors, windows and other architectural elements for single-family housing and some multifamily – House Bill 150 – passed the N.C. House but didn’t make it out of the Senate. REBIC notes this bill was its top priority.

Planners had deep concerns that it would ban them from regulating so-called snout houses, in which garages projecting from the front of houses can, in subdivisions of look-alike houses, create the visual image of a street of garages, rather than a street of houses. In addition, a growing number of communities have adopted form-based zoning codes (here’s a link to the Form-Based Codes Institute) which worry less about density or the uses of buildings, giving developers far more flexibility, but which instead concentrate on how well buildings fit in with their surroundings. Architectural design elements play a larger role in a form-based code than in a conventional zoning ordinance.

For a pro-con package on House Bill 150, check out PlanCharlotte.org‘s articles from March: Bill to limit local zoning powers: two views.

If you ask the public, they might answer

(Update, 9/19/12 at 1 p.m.: A more complete version of this article, with photos, “Neighbors deliver earful on zoning ordinance,” is now available at PlanCharlotte.org.)

You’d expect a room full of developers, developer consultants and lobbyists invited specifically to  bellyache Tuesday afternoon about Charlotte’s zoning ordinance would have had plenty to say. And they did have comments. But it was the group who followed them, about two dozen neighborhood activists and non-developers at a later public comment session, who all but scorched the paint off the walls.

“My concern is that this whole process will turn the zoning ordinance over to the developers,” said Bea Nance of the College Downs neighborhood in northeast Charlotte.

“We’re no match for the developers with money,” said John Wall of the Hidden Valley and North Tryon Street neighborhood.

“The problem is, there are no teeth in plans. They mean nothing,” said Susan Lindsay of east Charlotte.

“Quite honestly, the staff doesn’t support their own plans,” said Cindy Schwartz of Dilworth. “We never see them oppose anything.”

The two forums were held Tuesday ….
to solicit comments from the public about a zoning ordinance assessment. The city Planning Department has hired Clarion Associates of Chapel Hill and Denver to look at the city’s zoning ordinance and at whether it helps or hurts in implementing city policies and plans, and then offer ideas for reorganizing, restructuring and updating the ordinance. A 4-6 p.m. public comment session was aimed at developers and other regular users of the ordinance. A 7-9 p.m. session was aimed at other members of the public.

As consultant Matt Goebel of Denver repeated several times, the consultants aren’t writing a new zoning ordinance as part of the project. It’s an assessment, not a rewrite, he said.

Nevertheless, participants at both sessions questioned why more public input wasn’t included in the project. At the night meeting, even the consultants’ intent to get city planning staff to edit a draft of the assessment report they’ll write in the next few months raised suspicions and complaints among several people in the audience.

“You’re getting paid out of public dollars,” Susan Lindsay said. “I’d like to see what you have to say without the staff editing it.”

Not all the comments were in agreement with each other. Bea Nance said plenty of residents like having grass and trees and weren’t necessarily interested in more public transit service. ” ‘Suburban’ is not a bad word, people,” she said.

It’s not that the earlier session, with developers, was filled with the bluebirds of happiness. Among the issues raised, in addition to a wish for more public input, were:

From developer David Furman: A suggestion that, especially in more well-developed areas, measuring development intensity by counting units per acre isn’t particularly effective. A better measure, he said, would be to use what planners call Floor Area Ratio, which measures the square footage of the building compared to the size of the site.

From developer and consultant Karla Knotts: It’s difficult to look things up in the ordinance the way it’s presented on the city’s website. Also, she said, “Unless you know you’re in an overlay district there’s no way to know you’re in an overlay district.”

From lobbyist Joe Padilla of the Real Estate and Building Industry Coalition: Some broad-brush restrictions, such as height limits, would be more effective if they were tailored to different parts of the city instead of imposed one-size-fit-all.

Add your own input. Take an online survey: Click here, or visit the city Planning Department department web page for the project by clicking here.