PROJECT DESCRIPTON The City of Raleigh is currently undertaking a process to develop a New Development Code, which will take the form of a Unified Development Ordinance (UDO). The goal of the New Code is to prepare development regulations that both address contemporary development and zoning practices and are easily understood by administrators, the public and the development community. The New Code will support goals and policies expressed in the new Comprehensive Plan, recently approved by City Council. The New Code will address all elements of the City's zoning and subdivision ordinance in addition to other regulations cross referenced in the entire development ordinance and applicable policies. Documents providing more information about the project are available in the links at the right.
Areas of key concern to be incorporated into the New Code include:
Creating regulations that provide a means of implementing the goals, policies and actions of the 2030 Comprehensive Plan;
Creating regulations that address market trends, incorporate best practices and address contextual issues throughout the City;
Removing or amending outdated standards;
Consolidating uses or use groups;
Creating clear definitions and terminology;
Providing graphics and illustrations to supplement written regulations; and
Crafting regulations that provide for effective enforcement capacity.
The Department of City Planning is the lead agency overseeing the drafting of the New Code. A working group of key City departments will be providing input, background data, and oversight. The UDO Advisory Group comprised of 13 citizens appointed by the City Council, the Planning Commission, and City Council will convene for work sessions on the UDO proposal at key points of the process, and will participate in the refining of the New Code during the adoption process. Most importantly, citizens and stakeholders throughout the City will play a key role developing the content and direction of the New Code.
DOCUMENTS Read the Development Code: Diagnostic and Approach Report submitted by the Code Studio team. The report provides an analysis of the existing development code and outlines possible approaches to writing a new Unified Development Ordinance. Additionally, the report has been uploaded to the Limehouse web portal. Interested parties should review the illustrated PDF and use the online portal version to comment directly on the document. Comments may be posted up to March 31, 2010.
PRESENTATIONS The consultant held a form based code workshop in February 2010. View the presentation from this workshop. The consultant team conducted a kickoff meeting and listening sessions in October 2009. View the kickoff presentation.
PUBLIC MEETINGS The consultant team will be back in Raleigh March 15-17 to conduct public meetings. The consultants will present the coding approach to City Council and conduct listening sessions during their visit. The meeting locations are still being finalized. Information will be posted to the website and emailed to those on the email distribution list once details are finalized.
ADVISORY GROUP The City Council has formed an Advisory Group of thirteen citizens to provide comment and review of the consultant-produced documents. The Advisory Group will hold regular meetings throughout 2010 to review and comment upon the documents. The next scheduled meeting for the Advisory Group is Wednesday February 17 from 4 to 6. They will also meet on Wednesday March 3 from 4 to 6. These meetings are held at the Urban Design Center and are open to the public.
CONTACT INFORMATION If you have questions or comments related to the Development code, please contact us at Newcode@ci.raleigh.nc.us. View the Code Studio website for information on the consultants.
