Tag: Unified Development Ordinance

Decatur City Commission Approves UDO

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Last night, the Decatur City Commission unanimously approved the UDO that’s been in the works for over a year, which cleans up the city’s current ordinances, creates an almost readable document out of a bunch of rambling, random ordinances, and also adds a few new laws to the books.  The UDO is 400+ pages long, and you can check out the approved draft as part of the meeting agenda here.

Among the new ordinances on the books,

  • a high efficiency building standard for new buildings and “substantial improvement” of residential buildings. The former goes into effect in November 2015, while the later goes into effect in February 2016.
  • A 15 notification period for a demolition permit
  • New zoning types – R50, R22 Multi-family residential, and Neighborhood Mixed Use District.

The majority of the UDO goes into effect February 1, 2015.

Decatur Releases Final UDO Draft, Public Hearing Nov. 17th

udo final draft

After a year-long process, the City of Decatur has released the final draft of its Unified Development Ordinance (it’s 412 pages!) and scheduled a work session and public meeting for the next City Commission meeting date – Monday, November 17th.  It will be presented for adoption at the regular CIty Commission meeting that same day, which begins at 7:30p.

Here are the remaining steps in the process, courtesy of Decatur Next…

  • Wednesday, November 5 Final draft of the UDO (v4.0), together with all supplementary standards, released.

  • Tuesday, November 11 | 7pmThe Planning Commission reviews completed articles in their monthly public hearing and provides recommendation. Community comment welcome.

  • Monday, November 17 | Work Session: 6:30pm | Public Hearing: 7:30pmComprehensive UDO, comprising all applicable comments and considerations, presented to City Commission for consideration of adoption. Community comment welcome.

UDO Open House: Last Chance to Comment is Today

The City of Decatur sent out this announcement yesterday…

Tomorrow: UDO Open House
Tuesday, October 7 | 9 a.m. – 9 p.m.
All-day Open House
Decatur City Hall, 509 N. McDonough St.

Drop by any time between 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. to view the ordinance, ask questions and make comments. Come at 10 a.m.,Noon, 4 p.m. or 7 p.m. and you’ll also get an informal presentation about the current draft.

In mid July, after almost 9 months of increasingly focused public meetings, the UDO process finally arrived at an initial draft — a draft subsequently subjected to 22 hours of open house discussion with residents and 4 exploratory topics for online consideration via Open City Hall. From that, together with additional comments that came in, a second, work-in-progress draft was released and presented for review by the city commission in two September work sessions.

Based on direction provided in those sessions, we now have, for final public review, a largely comprehensive third draft. We say largely because we want to leave room for the various nips and tucks common to a document of this size; anything that might still be undergoing legal review; or anything that might come up during this final period of city and public review.

CONSIDERATION, IN WHOLE OR IN PART

Tuesday, October 14 | 7pm
The Planning Commission reviews completed articles in their monthly public hearing. Community comment welcome.

Monday, October 20 | 7:30pm
Completed articles, comprising all applicable comments and considerations, presented to City Commission for consideration of adoption. Community comment welcome.

Unified Development Ordinance Work Session Tonight and on Wednesday

The city sent this around earlier today…

Want to learn more about the proposed Unified Development Ordinance (UDO)? The City Commission has two work sessions, one tonight and one Wednesday, to go over everything it includes. The community is welcome to attend one or both work sessions and listen in, but please note that there will not be an opportunity for public comment at either of these meetings.

 

The work sessions are Monday, Sept. 22 and Wed., Sept. 24 from 5 p.m. – 8 p.m. in the City Commission Meeting Room, City Hall, 509 N McDonough St.

Decatur Asks For Feedback on Implementing Green Building Standards

Last week, the city posted another Unified Development Ordinance question on Open City Hall to solicit feedback from the community.  The Decatur Minute sums it up …

We’re wrapping up our online polling with questions about how the UDO should handle high performance (green) buildings. The proposed UDO includes new high performance standards for both residential and commercial buildings.

The proposal would require some manner of third-party green building certification for new construction or substantial renovations that exceed 50% of a building’s pre-renovation market value.  It would also require new construction buildings to achieve higher tightness standards, making them less leaky than Georgia Residential Energy Code currently allows.

In other green building news, at the last Decatur City Commission meeting, City Manager Peggy Merriss announced that Fire Station #1 recently received Platinum LEED certification.

Photo courtesy of nfdecatur

Decatur Asks For Feedback on “Key” UDO Questions – Floor Area and Demolition Permit Posting

If you haven’t already, head on over to Open City Hall and see the “key” remaining questions posted by the city that relate to Decatur’s Unified Development Ordinance process.  Here’s the overview question…

Should the city eliminate minimum floor area requirements for residences, allow residents to modestly increase floor area maximums, and require posting a demolition permit for 15 days before demolishing a building?

The Decatur Minute also has alerted residents to be on the look out for a new question on Open City Hall about “green building standards” in the coming days.  We’ll try to alert you when that’s posted as well.

Folks have until September 7th to submit feedback.

UDO Draft Documents Now Available for Review Online

Deanne notes this update to the Decatur Next post regarding the Unified Development Ordinance draft…

DIG IN

The following DRAFT FILES, as of July 21, 2014, are now available for your review:

Summary of Major Changes
A quick-read overview of where significant changes occur in the draft ordinance. (.pdf)

Clarification Notes for High-Performance / Green Building
Details re: community input that any proposed green regulations focus primarily on new development rather than on more typical household improvements, renovations or upgrades. (.pdf)

Draft Articles 1 through 12 of the Unified Development Code, plus Appendix
The full draft, as of July 21, 2014. (16.9mb .pdf)

Certainly make sure to check out the summary of major changes if nothing else.  Note — first and foremost! 🙂 — the draft ordinance makes changes to Decatur’s animals ordinance, so you can now raise pot-bellied pigs and pigmy goats – but you can only have a total of two!

What post isn’t improved by a picture of a pot-bellied pig?  This photo courtesy of momboleum via Flickr