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Aberdeen adopts broad UDO updates to simplify zoning rules, adjust lot standards and allow outdoor display downtown
Summary
The board approved text amendments to the town’s UDO that remove lot‑size averaging, tweak minimum lot widths and duplex lot sizes, add bicycle parking and permit certain outdoor displays downtown with TRC sketch‑plan review; the planning board recommended the changes unanimously.
The Aberdeen Town Board on June 22 adopted a comprehensive set of updates to the town’s Unified Development Ordinance intended to fix drafting errors, clarify procedures and modernize several standards.
Planning Director Pam Graham summarized changes in TA‑26‑05. Highlights include removal of an antiquated ‘lot averaging’ allowance (town planners said minimum lot sizes should be met directly rather than averaged across a project), modest reductions in required lot widths to improve lot depth and backyard sizes while leaving minimum lot area unchanged, and a new allowance for duplexes and attached units in certain mixed‑use zones with adjusted lot dimensions.
Staff also clarified the official‑map amendment process, corrected references to flood and water‑supply maps, added bicycle‑parking requirements to the off‑street parking table, established minimum stacking for drive‑throughs, tightened signage/window‑sign rules, and simplified conditional‑zoning language to align with statute. A notable policy change allows outdoor display or outdoor storage in downtown commercial areas when the end use is an outdoor product (for example plants or picnic furniture) and the business submits a sketch plan to the Technical Review Committee showing no sidewalk or fire‑lane obstructions.
The planning board unanimously recommended adoption; the board found the text amendments consistent with adopted plans and approved TA‑26‑05. Staff said the updates are intended to reduce review confusion, give clearer guidance to developers and better align the code with local practice (for example allowing some outdoor displays downtown that had been treated as prohibited).
Several commissioners called the changes overdue and said the code now better reflects Aberdeen’s development goals and will make routine permitting more efficient. The board voted to adopt the consistency statement and then to approve the text amendments.
