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Unified Development Ordinance


kermit

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Hopefully the new council will actually work toward appointing a permanent director of the planning department. McKinney has been interim director for quite a while now, which I'm sure is a very difficult position to be in from a practical and functional standpoint. Hands tied because of the interim part, but getting all of the flack because they won't put permanent leadership in place. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

It took three years but CharMeck finally has a new planning director:

https://www.bizjournals.com/charlotte/news/2017/12/18/after-3-years-city-of-charlotte-names-new-planning.html?ana=TWT_staffAF

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Jaiyeoba has most recently been working for HNTB Corp. as associate vice president/regional business development leader for its Southeast division. Prior to that, he served as transit principal and market sector lead for HDR Inc. and AECOM, respectively, in Charlotte. Jaiyeoba's previous jobs also include executive director of planning and development in Grand Rapids, Mich., and director of project management and director of planning in Sacramento, Calif.

 

Edited by kermit
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While speeding up the process odes sound good - the zoning ordinance is massive in terms of how it affects the development process in Charlotte. Speeding up "gets it done" quicker, but it may result in things being overlooked or implications not thought through as thoroughly as you would expect.

The new guy is going to have his hands full. He's got a lot of transit experience according to his LinkedIn page, so the choice is definitely a different one. 

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27 minutes ago, Spartan said:

 Speeding up "gets it done" quicker, but it may result in things being overlooked or implications not thought through as thoroughly as you would expect.

I don't disagree with you but I'll add that going slow only gets us more sprawl which is really hard to remediate.

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  • 2 months later...

also two upcoming opportunities to discuss the UDO with our new head planner:

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Friday, March 23rd at 8:00 am at the Charlotte Trolley Powerhouse Studio, Mitchell Silver and Taiwo Jaiyeoba, Charlotte's new Planning Director, will discuss the new Unified Development Ordinance for Charlotte: What Can UDO Coffee Talk 

Saturday, March 24th, the City of Charlotte will host a summit about the work to rewrite Charlotte's Unified Development Ordinance (which is like the DNA for new development) and the Place Types that make up our neighborhoods and neighborhood centers. The What Can UDO Summit will be at UNCC Center City.

 

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Speaking of building height and transit proximity:  I read about this recently. not sure the status of the proposal, but they are apparently looking to upzone all parcels within certain proximity to transit  to allow taller buildings... STATEWIDE... legislated.  UDO obviously won't go there, but if we are looking toward the future with this rewrite, I wonder if it is worth considering?

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19 minutes ago, archiham04 said:

Speaking of building height and transit proximity:  I read about this recently. not sure the status of the proposal, but they are apparently looking to upzone all parcels within certain proximity to transit  to allow taller buildings... STATEWIDE... legislated.  UDO obviously won't go there, but if we are looking toward the future with this rewrite, I wonder if it is worth considering?

I'm super uncomfortable with the state being involved with that level of local governance. I know that's already happened in some ways (like banning a lot of aesthetic controls by cities), but in general I think it's a terrible idea for the state to get into zoning like that. 

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1 minute ago, Cadi40 said:

Can someone explain the UDO for the less intellectual like myself.

I'm not too versed on Charlotte's UDO but I'll try to tackle this for you since they all pretty much work the same in every city.   A UDO, or Unified Development Ordinance,  is a set of regulations that guide growth and development in a city, almost every city has one.  Along with the UDO you have zoning districts within a city that are also used to guide growth and development.  The UDO sets specific regulations on each zoning district, so for instance, for areas in Charlotte that are zoned TOD-A, you will have requirements that promote walkable, mixed use, transit friendly developments, because that is typically what you want around transit stations.  I wish I could go more into this but since I'm at work I only have so much time, I'm actually working on updating the UDO for the City I work for as we speak.

You can also go to charlotteudo.org and there is a lot of information on there that's helpful.  

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I know a good bit about Zoning, Place-Types, Form based codes, and  Unified Development Ordinances in other cities.  I have listened to several presentations about the UDO in Charlotte and have been very disappointed every time.  It is always a very complicated explanation about how things are being improved by simplification.  Nothing in our UDO that I have seen thus far approaches simple.

I hope and pray that they can find a way to simplify.  I am worried that their current thinking is that it just needs a better delivery.  That it IS simple, but people "just don't understand it yet"....  I think they need to work to ACTUALLY SIMPLIFY IT, instead of trying to convince people that it is simple.

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7 minutes ago, ricky_davis_fan_21 said:

Unfortunately this was turned in before last nights kerfuffle over zoning and UDO at city council. Tried to get in some sound bites but was unable to with short notice.  

oh nice, can you elaborate a little bit on what was said at the city council meeting?

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I wasn't able to attend, but Ely Portillo had some good tweets throughout the evening - you can see his twitter page for more.  Generally it seems like council is frustrated with the slow progress and is not satisfied with how the proposed UDO rules would change their role in rezonings. 

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What rules would help accommodate it so that a landowner could build something like a four-plex on a single family home plot without rezoning it (at least in certain areas)?

Every other area should be allowed to do one increment of intensity up by-right.

Charlotte Planning seems obsesses with keeping use-based zoning. It doesn't look like we're getting away from that, huh?

Edited by SgtCampsalot
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