2 insiders weigh in on Charlotte's UDO draft
This article originally appeared in the October 13, 2021, edition of The Charlotte Ledger. Sign up and have smart and essential local news delivered to your inbox. Details here.
Charlotte’s Unified Development Ordinance will overhaul the city’s development rules. Here are 2 takes on the ordinance’s first draft.
Earlier this month, Charlotte’s planning department released the first draft of the city’s Unified Development Ordinance, which is must-read material for developers, builders and neighborhood advocates with skin in the land-use game.
It’s important, because it’s the ordinance that will put the teeth into the city’s 2040 Comprehensive Plan, which the City Council passed in June on a 6-5 vote. It revises and consolidates the city’s development rules — which is a big deal in a fast-growing city.
The timetable for the ordinance calls for several rounds of public comments and revisions, with a vote expected in July 2022.
Obviously, opinions on the whopping 608-page “UDO” document are going to be mixed. We asked two people who are coming at the ordinance from different vantage points to give us the short-version of their take on it:
First up — David Walters, who is a member of the UDO advisory committee as well as an urban designer, architect and professor emeritus at UNC Charlotte:
For most of the 30-plus years I’ve worked in Charlotte, the city had neither a comprehensive plan nor a zoning ordinance that were fit for purpose. The intertwined political, personal, and professional reasons for that are complex and go back a long way — and beyond the scope of this short note — but I am delighted that our city now has a fine plan and is on the threshold of having an equally good zoning ordinance. The 2040 Comp Plan establishes preferred policies to guide growth and preservation, and points to a more sustainable future, one where problems and opportunities will confront us in equal measure. Now the UDO gives us the best legal tools to enact those visions and policies
Some of these proven ideas are new to Charlotte, and some people resist them simply for that reason, but my 50 years of professional design and development experience tell me we have it right. Thirty years ago, I and a few others who championed these ways of thinking were lone voices in the wilderness — often ridiculed and insulted. But now these concepts are mainstream in Charlotte’s political and professional worlds.
So I am content (for the time being).
Second, here are the thoughts of Rob Nanfelt, executive director of the Real Estate & Building Industry Coalition (REBIC):
The Real Estate and Building Industry Coalition supports the purported aim of consolidating all of the City’s land use regulations into one document, and hopefully, leading to a more streamlined process for all. This is a big expectation. Consider this, the recent UDO draft fills 608 pages. If the document that consolidates the regulations is that long, then you can appreciate the complexity of the current disjointed city approval process. We have already begun to review and mark up the draft and are pleased to be able to offer our initial critique. These are three things we have noted already.
The draft does introduce new building design requirements and new building material restrictions for multi-family dwellings, mixed use developments, and non-residential buildings. These new standards, when paired with enhanced stormwater and tree regulations, will substantially increase costs which will make the housing affordability problem even worse. This must be addressed.
The draft states that projects permitted prior to the effective date will be grandfathered, but is silent on those where plans have been submitted. Does that mean developments already underway but not yet permitted will have to go back to the drawing board?
A new regulation requiring Comprehensive Transportation Review (CTR) and a Transportation Demand Management (TDM) report on all future developments has been added. These are very costly studies and should not be required for all development projects.
Speedier approvals can negate some higher costs. Time will tell if this will be the case. We will continue to be a significant voice in the debate.
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Executive editor: Tony Mecia; Managing editor: Cristina Bolling; Contributing editor: Tim Whitmire, CXN Advisory; Contributing photographer/videographer: Kevin Young, The 5 and 2 Project