Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Land Use Planning topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Chatham County posts public review draft of development standards; board approves added funding to finish UDO
Summary
County planning staff and consultants released the public review draft of the Unified Development Ordinance (module 2) and the board authorized staff to pursue a budget amendment to increase the contract to complete the UDO, adding contingency to meet a compressed adoption timeline.
Chatham County planning staff and the consultant team released a public review draft April 15 of the Unified Development Ordinance’s development-standards module and briefed the Board of Commissioners on the adoption timeline and budget.
Consultants said the UDO project was originally scoped as a multi-module rewrite with an estimated contract of about $328,000. Planners and consultants proposed a compressed, two-year schedule and on Monday released the development-standards material (Module 2) for public review. The consultants briefed the commissioners on an accelerated route to adoption that would roll subsequent modules and a zoning-map implementation step into an adoption process aimed at late 2024.
Planning staff requested increased contract funding to complete the remaining drafting, scenario testing and the implementation (zoning map) steps. The staff recommendation raised the project budget to about $557,000; planners told the board about a $67,000 shortfall after using available plan-monitoring carryover funds, and asked for a $60,000 contingency for adoption-phase needs. Commissioners adopted a motion directing county finance staff to prepare the required budget amendment and authorized staff to continue on the compressed schedule.
Planning staff also described a robust internal review protocol: drafts first go to planning staff, then to a UDO subcommittee of the planning board that includes ex officio members from advisory groups (affordable housing, climate, etc.), and finally into public-review drafts. Staff reported that the UDO subcommittee’s detailed line-by-line reviews had added time but strengthened the drafts. Consultants said the accelerated schedule was feasible but would be resource-intensive and asked commissioners for an affirmation that the board supports the proposed schedule.
The board’s direction allows staff to return with the formal budget ordinance amendment and to keep the public-engagement schedule on a faster track toward adoption. Staff cautioned that a subsequent zoning-map implementation step (rezoning parcels to the new districts) would be a separate, technically detailed process and would require its own public engagement and final decisions by the board.
