City Set to Begin Creation of Unified Development Ordinance
Decatur Metro | September 17, 2013Decatur has a Town Center plan. A transportation plan. Parking studies. An Environmental Sustainability Board. We legalized backyard poultry a long time ago.
Basically Decatur has put a lot of codes, ordinances and plans in place over the last many years. Plus, there are additional codes/ordinances and revisions that have been proposed over the past few years that have been back-burnered, waiting for this process to occur. Well, it’s looks like it’s time to get started.
Last night, at the Decatur City Commission meeting, the commission approved the “Decatur Coding Studio Team” of consultants who will work on unifying the city’s codes into one document. According to a letter from Planning Director Amanda Thompson…
The team will be led by TSW, a local full service planning, architecture and landscape architecture fum. TSW was the project manager for the City’s 2010 Strategic Plan. They have assembled a team that includes: Code Studio, a national fum based in Austin, Texas with expertise in zoning and development codes; Placemakers for public outreach; Pond Engineering; Karen Hueber a specialist in historic preservation; and, Maddox Nix Bowman and Zoeckler for legal review services.
TSW and Placemakers both worked on the 2010 Decatur Strategic Plan. Code Studio is based out of Austin and has worked with other “liberal” leaning cities like Denver and Chapel Hill in developing a unified code.
What is the Unified Development Code? Well, the City of Roswell’s website on UDCs describes it as…
…a single (“unified”) tool that addresses contemporary development and zoning practices in a format that is consistent and easily understood by administrators, developers, and community members.
The City Commission will also establish a “Stakeholder Steering Committee consisting of seventeen (17) members including representatives from each appointed volunteer authority, board or commission, and City Commission appointees from the community and other special interests. This committee would serve as an advisory group throughout the process.”, according to Ms. Thompson’s note.
The City Commission set a budget of $83,000 for phase 1 of the plan, which includes…
…establishing the overall public involvement schedule, communications methods, stakeholder interviews and a stakeholder steering committee. It will also include the preparation of a detailed technical report that will outline the new table of contents for the UDO and exactly what will be changed. The technical report would be presented for adoption by the City Commission in January 2014.
So dust off your “I live for public involvement” hats and iron out your “I’m Proud to be a De-Communicate-R” t-shirts. This certainly isn’t the last you’ll hear about this process between now and January.
Latest from Decaturish
Uh … huh. I skimmed the SOW for this – seems to be all about land development and use. Zero on the social impact of land use choices. I wonder if the “liberal”-friendly TSW and Placemakers have any experience or expertise in this regard? Or will issues concerning human beings be dealt with in another silo?
i’d also like to see strategic vision developed for attracting low impact industry into the city with the aim of bolstering our resident centric tax base with more commercial taxes.
a few years ago i consulted with the City of Atlanta on a strategic development initiative that was aimed at recruiting “industries of the mind”., e.g, technology, bio-med research, design . . . focused businesses, and years later we’ve seen the dividends of that work with Atlanta being a popular destination for companies in these fields.
Decatur has a number of underutilized areas that could be the locus for a technology corridor, art and design firm district . . . or whatever other low-impact fits our particulars. i certainly enjoy our retail/restaurant/bar businesses, but think we’d greatly benefit from cultivating a more diverse mix of business downtown.
of course it’s possible this has already been done, and i’m simply ignorant of it.
if not, then here’s a first motion.
How much of this will be unification and coordination of current code provisions and how much is anticipated to be changes in the current code provisions? Are we gearing up for another attempt at creating some new historical districts, and new infill guidelines?
Most of it is unification. However, when you have this many separate codes there is bound to be some inconsistencies and/or contradictory standards. So when it is time to put it all together there will be some necessary adjustments to make sure all the pieces jibe with one another.
Did a new tree ordinance ever get put in place? I am thinking that might be part of this “unification.”
A new tree ordinance was proposed in 2007 but was not adopted. We are currently using the tree ordinance written in 1990. It has been amended 3 times, most recently six months ago. The amendments were fairly minor. There is currently a petition out to pass a new tree ordinance before the unification code.
I don’t understand this. Does that mean I’m not a stakeholder?