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Planning commission forwards UDO text amendments to council, adds cluster-mailbox pull-off language
Summary
The commission unanimously recommended that the Greenwood Common Council approve text amendments to the Unified Development Ordinance to simplify use categories, revise accessory-structure and building-design rules, and add standards for cluster mailboxes including a delivery pull-off requirement.
The Greenwood Advisory Planning Commission voted unanimously on May 12 to recommend that the Greenwood Common Council adopt a package of text amendments to the Unified Development Ordinance (UDO). The changes, described by planning staff, aim to reduce frequent variances and align the ordinance with the city’s recent comprehensive plan.
Staff presented a chapter-by-chapter cleanup and several substantive changes. Key revisions include consolidating multiple gasoline- and eating-and-drinking-use categories into fewer, clearer categories; combining varied medical-office uses into a single medical-office use and removing full-service hospitals as a permitted use in some zones (including Agricultural and Old Town); adding artisan/manufacturing and data-center uses with special-exception requirements and design limits; and expanding the list of permitted recreational uses.
In building standards, staff proposed reducing the allowed garage projection from 8 feet to 2 feet to discourage front-facing dominant garages, requiring townhomes to be alley- or rear-loaded, and changing the accessory-structure screening rule so that the 36-inch masonry or wainscot requirement is removed for many accessory structures over 300 square feet (staff added alternate screening or full concealment options for metal buildings).
Sign regulations were simplified; for example staff removed a one-foot masonry surround requirement for sign faces while retaining material standards when a surround is used. The glossary was trimmed to remove duplicate or outdated definitions.
Planning staff also proposed new standards for cluster box units (CBUs). Those standards include location limits (not on arterial roadways, not on horizontal curves, and a minimum 50-foot distance from intersections/stop signs and fire hydrants), requirements that CBUs be placed behind sidewalks, and amenities such as lighting and either a small shelter or landscaping. Commissioners asked staff to add a clear requirement that subdivisions provide a delivery pull-off or “blister” so postal vehicles can pull out of the traffic lane while servicing the CBU; staff agreed to include a pull-off requirement as part of the recommended language.
The commission moved to forward the amendments to the Greenwood Common Council with a favorable recommendation; the vote was 8–0. Staff and commissioners noted the package is a stopgap ahead of a full UDO rewrite by a consultant and planning staff scheduled for the coming year.
