The Raleigh Planning Department released the draft Unified Development Ordinance, UDO for short, for public comments Wednesday.
Raleigh residents have 60 days to read and comment on the document that will guide development in the city for decades to come.
In order to help residents understand and get involved in the review draft, we at The Record will be reading the entire document cover to cover and bring you what we find six days a week.
The UDO is essentially a full rewrite of Raleigh’s zoning code. Building on the two-year effort to develop Raleigh’s 2030 Comprehensive Plan, which envisions how Raleigh should grow, the UDO gives teeth to the plan and codifies that vision for Raleigh’s future.
- Understanding the UDO Q&A with Raleigh’s Planning Manager
- UDO Group Wants More Time to Review Code
- Residents Get Crash Course in UDO
An advisory group has worked for a year to develop the draft. There’s a lot in there, from defining “mixed use” in North Raleigh to setting firm guidelines for the areas surrounding downtown, plus everything in between.
The UDO draft is a big, complicated document. The 60-day comment window created something of a controversy with councilors last month. District D’s Thomas Crowder questioned how the public could really digest the document and make thoughtful comments in the two months before the code goes to a public hearing on June 7.
You can access the new code here. Through the Limehouse portal you can download each chapter and make your comments.
We will get started in earnest Thursday with our daily reading through the new code. If you have any questions, hit the Contact link and we will do our best to answer them. You can also reach us on Facebook or Twitter.
We will be not only reading the code, but bringing in city staff and other people who know about these things to help us get through the really technical stuff.
We hope you will read along with us. Thursday we will get the legal stuff out of the way with Chapter 1, the introductory and legal provisions.
