Raleigh Public Record (https://theraleighcommons.org/raleighpublicrecord/author/amonti/page/44/)
Tuesday, we got a crash course in the special districts permitted under the new UDO. The UDO spends a little extra time on three special districts, Manufactured Home Park (R-MP), Campus (CMP) and Planned Development (PD).
Now that we’ve finally gotten through mixed-use districts, let’s move on to Chapter 4, which talks about special districts. There are six different kinds of special-use districts.
While some people are content living in the hustle and bustle of a mixed-use district, others – primarily in residential districts – prefer a buffer between their backyards and higher density. Transitions must be used when a mixed-use district is within 50 feet of a boundary of residential district.
We see frontages every day, but never seem to give them much thought. A frontage is the way a building addresses the street, including how close it is to the road, if it has landscaping and where the parking is located.
While battery-operated radios are recommended by all emergency services for use during a major storm, a smartphone with access to Facebook and Twitter helped many Raleighites get information during Saturday’s tornado.
Currently, there are no hard and fast rules that dictate the maximum height of a building in a particular area. The larger the lot, the taller the building could be. The UDO would change all of that, by giving each mixed-use district a height designation.
Last week, we skipped ahead to Chapter 11 so we could learn who’s in charge of making all of these decisions, but today we’re back to the beginning and taking a look at Chapter 3, which deals with mixed-use districts.
Photo by abbyladybug – Downtown Mixed Use would be a mixed bag of retail, commercial and residential housing, exactly like what we see in Downtown Raleigh today.
A proposed ordinance would require all new construction to have a designated parking area made of a non-erodible material that is no more than 40 percent of the front lot or 425 square feet – whichever is greater – and some kind of screening along the facing property line, such as hedges. While this part of the regulation would be enacted citywide, individual neighborhoods could apply for an overlay district that would make the ordinance retroactive in their area.
Raleigh City Planning Manager Christine Darges is responsible for overseeing the team that has been updating, revising and publicizing the new Unified Development Ordinance (UDO). The first draft of the UDO will be released April 6. The Record chatted with Darges to break down the confusing UDO and find out how will it affect Raleigh denizens.
Some residents got a sneak peek recently at the city’s planning process during the Hillsborough Community Advisory Committee meeting. Members of the city’s planning department walked residents through a unified development ordinance (UDO) exercise, which had attendees in deep discussion well after 9 p.m.
The new UDO, which has been in development for about a year, will replace all of the existing zoning code by creating a systematic and cohesive code for future growth. The city wishes to implement the project in two steps. Step one will be to adopt the text, with public hearings scheduled for July, and then to apply the zoning districts to the property. The second step is the mapping of the UDO, which could occur six to 18 months after adoption.
