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Town staff outlines draft landscape and open-space standards; steering process to continue
Summary
Town staff described draft landscape and open-space standards to the advisory committee, including street-tree, buffer, vehicular-use landscaping and open-space requirements; the subcommittee plans further testing, Planning Board review and a June council adoption target.
Town planning staff told the Parks and Greenways Advisory Committee that the town is drafting new landscape and open-space standards to better align the development code with the Woodfin Together comprehensive plan. Staff said this effort is a targeted code amendment that will move forward more quickly than the full comprehensive code update, which is expected to take 1416 months.
The draft standards the town is testing include:
- Street-tree requirements for road frontage and new streets, with trees placed within 20 feet of the pavement edge where feasible. - Buffer yards between residential and commercial zoning, with planting rates expressed as a number of trees and shrubs per 100 linear feet and a mix of large- and small-maturing trees and evergreens/deciduous varieties. - Vehicular use area landscaping (parking lots, driveways, outdoor display and maneuvering areas) and screening requirements for dumpsters and storage. - Open-space set-asides based on project and property size, with explicit exclusions (for example, a plain stormwater retention pond does not qualify as open space unless designed for public interaction or constructed as a wetland).
Staff said they have tested the draft standards on four active or recently permitted sites in Woodfin to confirm they are achievable and to reduce the need for frequent variance requests. The proposed thresholds include applying subdivision open-space and street-tree requirements to subdivisions of five lots or more; staff noted statutory limits on regulating individual single-family home lots.
On species selection, staff said recommended plant lists will be provided as an appendix to the code and will encourage native species suitable to the local plant community, with special attention to riparian areas, flood zones and steep slopes. The town plans to adapt Asheville’s recommended species list for local use.
Staff described next steps: another subcommittee meeting in early April, review and recommendation by the Planning Board of Adjustment, and a targeted Town Council adoption in June. The comprehensive code update consultant will review the new standards during the larger update process and may recommend refinements within the next 1216 months.
Committee members asked about fee-in-lieu options and sidewalk requirements. Staff said the subcommittee discussed fee-in-lieu and chose not to pursue it because of statutory and legal ambiguity; sidewalk standards already exist in the code and are applied to larger projects and new streets. Staff also confirmed the code will include new definitions, enforcement and maintenance provisions, and tree protection and incentive language. No formal vote was taken by the committee on the draft standards at this meeting; staff asked the committee for high-level feedback and for volunteers to participate on the broader code update steering committee.
