Planning director outlines two-step Link District ordinance, design advisory process and timeline

Dr. Rhonda Russell, the city's director of planning, briefed the council on proposed zoning and design changes for the area rebranded as the Link District, a corridor she said runs from High and Effingham to High and the MLK corridor. Russell said the Innovation Plan aims to encourage mixed-use development, entrepreneurship, creative industries and a growing health-care cluster.

Russell described a two-track implementation. "One is option A, which is that we would propose adoption of the current ordinance language as it was adopted in the innovation plan," she said. Option A would adopt permitted and prohibited uses plus baseline design standards; Option B would be a second, subsequent adoption that refines design standards through stakeholder engagement informed by best practices.

Key provisions in the draft ordinance Russell highlighted include a maximum building height of 100 feet, a maximum of 64 dwelling units per acre, a five-foot maximum building setback and ground-floor transparency requirements of roughly 60 percent for glazing. The draft also encourages mixed uses such as commissary kitchens, maker spaces and entrepreneur hubs and prohibits uses the plan deemed incompatible, such as gasoline stations and certain vehicle services.

Russell said the planning team recently visited Greenville, South Carolina, to study pedestrian-oriented downtown design and wants to replicate elements such as continuous frontage, pedestrian-scaled public spaces, coordinated signage and pocket seating. She emphasized the difference between building setback and the public right-of-way: sidewalk width and street design (to be addressed through the city's awarded RAISE grant right-of-way work) will determine pedestrian comfort, while the ordinance governs private building placement and facade treatments.

On schedule, Russell told council staff will present the draft to the Planning Commission for a work session in November, seek a Planning Commission public hearing in December and bring a final ordinance forward to council in January. She said the RAISE grant process for right-of-way improvements includes public engagement and that staff had conferred with the city engineer, who confirmed opportunities for design engagement remain.

Council members asked about nonconforming uses and enforcement. In response, Russell said that existing nonconforming uses (for example, a building used for storage) may remain under the city's nonconforming-use provisions unless the use ceases for specified periods (e.g., 24 months vacancy or destruction beyond a statutory threshold). She acknowledged a potential risk that rapid private development could make later design refinements harder to implement but said the market is already showing development consistent with the plan.

Russell proposed a design advisory group to drive phase-two work and suggested re-engaging stakeholders who participated in the innovation plan, such as the Old Town Business Association, while opening the process to additional civic and neighborhood representatives. Councilmembers discussed the need to balance broad community input with an efficient advisory process.

Russell said staff identified short-term projects to begin implementation along the corridor and reported approximately $21,000,000 in federal and state right-of-way funds associated with the RAISE grant to support street and public-space improvements that will complement private development. She asked council for direction to proceed with ordinance adoption followed by a public-engagement design refinement phase.