AGENDA #1
MEMORANDUM
TO: Mayor and Town Council
FROM: W. Calvin Horton, Town Manager
SUBJECT: Public Hearing on Third Draft of Proposed Land Use Management Ordinance (formerly “Development Ordinance”)
DATE: September 18, 2002
This Public Hearing has been scheduled to review a Third Draft of Chapel Hill’s proposed new Land Use Management Ordinance, and to hear comments from citizens and advisory boards. We note that the title of this document, formerly the Development Ordinance, has been changed at the Council’s request.
BACKGROUND
This project was initiated in the fall of 2000, and has been the subject of an extensive series of Council meetings and citizen workshops/forums. A full description of the background is found in Attachment 1.
The Ordinance is being prepared as a key mechanism to implement the Town’s Comprehensive Plan, which was adopted in May, 2000. A First Draft of a new Development Ordinance was prepared and discussed in March, 2001. A Second Draft was prepared in August, 2001. On June 10, 2002, after a series of workshops, forums, and discussions, the Town Council adopted a resolution giving specific directions as to changes to make in production of this Third Draft. Attachment 6 contains the Council’s direction: a resolution that referred to recommendations made in a set of 14 Discussion Papers (all included in Attachment 6). We note that we have found that the adopted minutes for June 10 do not fully match meeting notes and the recordings from June 10. Attachment 6 contains a version of the resolution that matches notes and recordings, and we will include an adjustment to the minutes on the Council’s September 23 agenda.
The Third Draft was completed on August 23, 2002, and distributed on August 26.
We also note that on September 9, the Council received a petition from Mr. Kyle Cattani regarding installation and maintenance of electric utility lines. The Council asked, on September 9, for additional information, which is included here as Attachment 5.
DESCRIPTION OF THE THIRD DRAFT
The Third Draft follows the basic format and structure of the Second Draft. There are 9 chapters and an appendix, organized as follows:
Article 1: General Provisions
(Legislative Authority, Link to Comprehensive Plan, Purpose of Ordinance)
Article 2: {Reserved for future consideration}
Article 3: Zoning Districts, Uses, and Dimensional Standards
(What you can do, where, and how much of it)
Article 4: Procedures
(What kind of approvals are needed for different types of development)
Article 5: Design and Development Standards
(How new development must be designed; what standards must be met)
Article 6: Special Regulations for Particular Uses
(Some uses, by their nature, require special consideration and treatment)
Article 7: Nonconformities
(Uses that were legally established under previous regulations)
Article 8: Administrative Mechanisms
(Rules for Town Council, Boards, Manager)
Article 9: Legal Status
(Repeal of existing regulations, conflicts with other laws)
Appendix A: Definitions
A key point of discussion during the past year has been the relationship between Chapel Hill’s Land Use Management Ordinance and Chapel Hill’s Design Manual. The Ordinance has the force of law, and its regulations are mandatory. The Design Manual offers details that are expected to be adhered to, unless alternate design solutions are proposed that accomplish the same purposes in a different way.
The Council has indicated intent to enact a new Land Use Management Ordinance during the fall of 2002, followed by work to begin updating the Town’s Design Manual.
This Third Draft has been prepared according to the Council’s June 10 directions, and includes change directed by the Council on June 10.
CHANGES IN THE THIRD DRAFT
There are many changes in the Third Draft, either as directed by the Town Council on June 10, or as necessary to make the document internally consistent and workable. Following is a list of some of the main areas where substantive changes have been incorporated:
· New Mixed Use Zoning District (Sec. 3.5.1)
· Resource Conservation District (Sec. 3.6.3)
· Neighborhood Conservation District (Sec. 3.6.5)
· Use Matrix (Table 3.7-1)
· Dimensional Matrix (Table 3.8-1)
· Concept Plan Review (Sec. 4.3)
· SUP Modification of Regulations (Sec. 4.5.6)
· Minor Subdivisions (Sec. 4.6.4)
· Steep Slope Regulations (Sec. 5.3.2)
· Stormwater Management (Sec. 5.4)
· Tree Ordinance (Sec. 5.7)
· Access and Circulation (Sec. 5.8)
· Parking Requirements (Sec. 5.9)
· Water and Sewer Requirements (Sec. 5.12.1)
· Electric Lines (Sec. 5.12.2)
· Nonconformities (Article 7)
· Definitions (Appendix A)
We have prepared a Discussion Paper that describes these and other changes that appear in the Third Draft. (Please see Attachment 2, “Highlights of Changes in Third Draft”.) This paper does not attempt to document every change; emphasis in this paper is on issues that have been the subject of particular attention by the Town Council and the community during consideration of the Second Draft.
DISCUSSION OF CHANGES
The Third Draft of the Land Use Management Ordinance has been written to incorporate changes as recommended by the Town Council on June 10. As Town staff members have been reviewing and evaluating this Draft, the key changes have been carefully studied as to their likely impacts. In addition, the Manager’s memorandum of June 10 described that the Third Draft would be evaluated with respect to staffing resources that specific changes might generate. Attachment 3, “Staff Comments on the Third Draft” offers this information and a set of recommendations for consideration.
TIMING
We believe that there are two key considerations in the schedule of review/approval of a new Land Use Management Ordinance. The first is when to call a conclusion to discussions and review, and act to enact a new Ordinance. The second is what to establish as an effective date for implementation of newly enacted regulations.
Regarding ongoing discussion and review, we believe that the Town Council must consider the balance between the value of additional discussion, analysis, and information gathering versus the value of taking action to establish a new framework for land use management. The ordinance might be improved by further Council consideration. We believe that it is not possible to foresee all possible effects of these proposed regulations, and there may be unintended consequences of a nature that would warrant correction of the new Ordinance in the future. However, we already are beginning to see two key difficulties as we approach the conclusion of the present schedule: uncertainty about what regulations will apply to proposals under review, and accelerated efforts to pursue development that is permitted under current regulations but may not be under new regulations. On balance, we believe that the benefit of proceeding with the present schedule of enactment this fall outweighs the benefit of delay.
Regarding effective date, we reported to the Council in June that there are three general options for setting an effective date: (a) effective upon enactment; (b) effective within approximately 30 days of enactment; or (c) effective within approximately 3-6 months of enactment. Each of these has advantages and disadvantages. The main advantage of “effective upon enactment” is precluding the possibility of a rush of applications between the time a new ordinance is approved and the time it becomes operational. We would expect this rush in large part because most of the proposed changes would make existing regulations more rigorous. The main disadvantage is that there would be no time to produce documents, forms, and train staff and applicants in the new rules overnight. The advantages and disadvantages of delaying the effective date are the reverse.
We believe that a workable solution would be to make the new ordinance effective upon enactment, but also to build in language that would allow flexibility in ordinance-specified deadlines for 60 days. Suspending these kinds of deadlines for 60 days would provide for a reasonable transition to full implementation of the new ordinance. Our preliminary recommendation on effective date is that the new regulations become effective upon enactment, with flexibility on deadlines for the initial 60-day period.
ADVISORY BOARD COMMENTS
At the time of publication of this memorandum, we do not have comments from advisory boards. The Draft was distributed during the week of August 26, and a number of boards did not have scheduled meetings between then and tonight’s Hearing. We know that several advisory boards are reviewing the Third Draft and will have comments, either at or subsequent to the Council’s September 18 Public Hearing. We are recommending that, at the close of tonight’s discussions, the Council recess the Public Hearing until October 21. We will collect comments from advisory boards for presentation in our follow-up memorandum for that meeting.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Manager’s Preliminary Recommendation: We believe that the Third Draft of the proposed new Land Use Management Ordinance reflects changes directed by the Town Council on June 10, 2002. Upon evaluation of these changes, we identify concerns that we believe merit consideration. Accordingly, our Preliminary Recommendation is that the Council enact the Third Draft as Chapel Hill’s new Land Use Management Ordinance, with consideration of making the following changes (as described in Attachment 2):
We recommend that the Council continue to be able to permit streets and bridges within the Resource Conservation District. We believe that the proposal to allow streets and bridges only with a variance to be approved by the Board of Adjustment eliminates the normal Council decision-making process regarding streets, traffic, and connectivity.
We recommend that all RCD stream corridors be established as the area within 100’ of any perennial or intermittent stream. We believe that moving the boundary out to 150’ of the banks of all streams while also strengthening the regulations would create a large number of nonconforming uses and structures to a degree that merits consideration, balancing the likely difficulties with the likely benefits.
We recommend adding references to additional mapping resources in the definitions of perennial and intermittent streams. We believe that the Council’s intent was to be inclusive in accessing data that might give evidence demonstrating the presence of a stream. The approach to identifying a perennial or intermittent stream in the Third Draft is to start with a good definition, including reference to several mapping sources, confirmed by field verification. We believe that additional map references could be added to the Third Draft.
We recommend exempting greenways and public utilities from the land disturbance limitations within the Resource Conservation District. We believe that the restrictions as proposed may prove to make construction of greenways and necessary public utilities difficult or impossible.
We recommend that, along with raising the RCD Elevation from 2’ to 3’ above the current 100-year floodplain elevation, the Council make a statement of intent that the RCD Elevation should be adjusted to be equal to the 100-year floodplain adjustment at the time that new floodplain maps are issued. We believe that, when accurate floodplain maps are available, the need for the extra measure of protection diminishes.
We recommend that the Third Draft be adjusted such that in non-watershed areas, gravel surfaces would count as half-impervious, and ponds would not be counted as impervious surface. We believe it is useful to provide incentives for gravel or special pervious pavement instead of paved surfaces in many situations to better manage stormwater, and we believe it would be desirable to facilitate construction of ponds.
We recommend that the threshold for the proposed stormwater requirement be set at 5,000 square feet of disturbed area. We believe that this threshold strikes a reasonable balance between the difficulties and costs involved in attempting to regulate stormwater volume and rates on small lots and projects, compared to stormwater management benefits from managing runoff on small parcels.
We recommend that the threshold level of activity to trigger tree protection regulations on a single-family or two-family lot be set at 5,000 square feet (same threshold as for stormwater management regulations). We believe that there is merit in having both of these thresholds, both of which trigger requirements for professional services and special studies and improvements related to construction of a single-family dwelling, to be identical
We recommend that adjustments be made to Parks and Open Space regulations to emphasize references to greenways, and to adjust the formula for calculating payments-in-lieu of recreation area. Several good suggestions from the Parks and Recreation Department did not make it into the June Council materials, and we believe these suggestions merit consideration.
We recommend that sign regulations be adjusted to clarify that the downtown exemption on small and moveable signs applies only if such sign is located on or in front of the business being advertised. We also recommend clarifying the size limitations for such exempt signage. A new trend has developed downtown to take advantage of exemptions to place off-site advertising. We believe it would be desirable to make an adjustment.
We recommend that clarification be added to the Third Draft regarding appeals of a Town Manager decision to clarify that the appeals process applies to cases where the Town Manager has made a final decision on an application - - approve, deny, or approve with conditions - - and not to appeals of opinions. A recent trend has been to appeal staff opinions to the Board of Adjustment, which we believe is not the intent of the appeals mechanism.
We note that, if the Third Draft is enacted as currently proposed, there will be an impact on management of the Town Council’s time and meeting calendar. The reason is that the proposed new process would have Concept Plans above a certain threshold coming to the Council for review and comment after having been before the Community Design Commission. We believe that Council review and discussion of a Concept Plan will likely take a form similar to the format that the Council uses for work sessions. We also believe that the time needed for such discussion could not be programmed into regularly scheduled business meetings or Public Hearings. We will likely suggest that the Council add a set of meetings, 6-9 per year, to its meeting calendar. During the 2001-02 fiscal year, we received 19 applications for Concept Plan review. Of those 19, eleven would have gone to the Town Council according to the thresholds that are proposed in Section 4.3 of the Third Draft.
We also note our opinion that, if the Third Draft is enacted as currently proposed, staff resources will need to be allocated as described in Attachment 2 and summarized below:
Regarding Stormwater Management regulations: We note that the proposed rules would increase the need for staff resources for plan review and evaluation, and for inspection of stormwater management facilities constructed on private property. It may be possible to meet some of the needs through contractual services.
Regarding applying Tree Protection Regulations to single-family and two-family lots: If this provision is included in a new Land Use Management Ordinance, we believe that additional resources will be needed to assist the Urban Forester in the Public Works Department. It may be possible to meet some of these needs through contractual services.
Regarding increased information and standards to be applied to construction of single-family and two-family dwellings: If these provisions are included in a new Land Use Management Ordinance, we recommend that steps be taken to add resources to work with builders/owners, evaluate submitted plans, and issue Zoning Compliance Permits prior to issuance of Building Permits for construction of single-family and two-family dwellings.
Regarding Effective Date: We recommend that the Council hold this Public Hearing open until October 21, 2002. The Council could consider enacting the new Land Use Management Ordinance, with whatever changes to the Third Draft the Council deems appropriate, at that October 21 business meeting or any time thereafter. When the Council enacts a new Ordinance, we will recommend that the new Ordinance become effective upon adoption. We will further recommend that language be added that will, for a period of 60 days, give the Town Manager authority to extend deadlines as necessary to accommodate the transition to the new regulations.
We recommend that the Council consider these suggestions, along with comments that will be made tonight and in the coming weeks from citizens and advisory boards, and recess this Hearing tonight, to be reconvened on October 21.
ATTACHMENTS
[NOTE: The Third Draft of the proposed new Land Use Management Ordinance is a 300-page document available for review in all of the following ways: Paper copies are available for purchase in the Chapel Hill Planning Department for $30.00, and available for review in the Chapel Hill Planning Department, the Chapel Hill Town Clerk’s Office, the Chapel Hill Public Library, the Estes Drive Community Center, and the Hargraves Community Center. Compact disks are available at no charge, containing the Third Draft in the form of a WORD document. The document is posted on the Town’s website (www.townofchapelhill.org).]