The group in charge of rewriting the city\u2019s zoning code needs more time.<\/p>\n
City Councilors Tuesday agreed to postpone a July public hearing and give the Unified Development Ordinance Advisory Group more time to iron out ongoing concerns.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere continues to be questions about certain aspects of this code that we have not had time to resolve,\u201d said UDO group member Rodney Swink. \u201cWe believe that it is critical that sufficient time be set aside for those concerns and questions to be addressed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mayor Charles Meeker said it is likely the project would extend into the next council and that the public hearing would not be held until early 2012.<\/p>\n
The Planning Department received almost 400 comments during the two-month public comment period, which ended on June 6. UDO project manager Christine Darges said more than half of the comments \u2014 62 percent \u2014 fell into the development standards and residential development categories.<\/p>\n
Throughout the different categories, 47 comments were in support, 114 objected to some aspect of the plan, 82 were observations and 148 were listed as \u201cother.\u201d Darges explained that \u201cother\u201d often included a suggestion or direction, whereas observations did not.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the beginning we worked with concepts; now we\u2019re getting into details,\u201d Darges said. \u201cWe do need enough time to vet those details because that\u2019s when the rubber hits the road and this is law and we have to be careful and not rush it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Darges recommended holding off on the public hearing until they could meet with all of the concerned groups and make any necessary changes, giving the public more time to review the draft before the public hearing. Monthly reports would be given to the council on the advisory group\u2019s progress.<\/p>\n
Councilman Russ Stephenson said he would still like to see a draft map along with the text.<\/p>\n
\u201cLooking at the districts in abstract isn\u2019t the same as looking at them on a site,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Planning Director Mitch Silver said it was important to focus on the text before the map, but that the maps would align closely with the future land use map.<\/p>\n
Councilor Mary-Ann Baldwin had questions about the extra time and possible cost implications. Silver said it is not only the volume of work, but the complexity of the work that requires extra time.<\/p>\n
Silver said the Planning Department is working with the consultant now to find out if they could continue working without racking up extra fees. However, it is likely that if they reach the cut-off date listed in the current contract, the contract would have to be amended and extra costs would be incurred. He said they do not have an estimate for those costs right now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A public hearing on the new zoning code will be delayed in an effort for the Unified Development Ordinance Advisory Group to process 400 public comments and sort through concerns. The project will likely extend into the next council. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24029,"featured_media":6210,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[134,15],"tags":[321,69],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7694"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24029"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7694\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}