An overhaul of Greenwood’s decades-old development guide is nearing the finish line.
The City of Greenwood’s zoning code is nearly 40 years old, and has become outdated as the city expands and grows rapidly. After two years of research, the city is putting final touches on the new code.
Greenwood officials worked to change what exactly is allowed and make the process easier for the public, developers and themselves to navigate by adding charts, maps, even a glossary and appendix.
The city paid a Cincinnati-based Calfee Zoning, which specializes in city planning, more than $152,000 to modernize its zoning rules, which officials hope will save residents, developers and its leaders time and, in some cases, money.
Today, Greenwood has three times the number of residents it did then, and more and more businesses are expanding or relocating to the city.
The zoning code is the city’s play book which guides land use and dimensional specifications for everything from street lights and signs to the distance a porch can protrude from a house and how wide a garage can be depending on the square-footage of a home.
But the current code isn’t clear because it leaves too much room for interpretation, city officials agreed when they made the move to have it overhauled.
A rising number of exceptions to the code were being requested, which indicated it was no longer consistent with what residents, business owners or city leaders wanted.
The city unveiled the plan to the public in July, when Greenwood hosted an open house for residents to view the proposed plans and an updated zoning map.
Greenwood’s advisory plan commission listened to the details of the proposed zoning plan during a public hearing Monday night. No one from the public spoke at the hearing, and the commission voted unanimously to send it with a favorable recommendation to the city council, which gets the final vote on the plan.
The goal is to simplify Greenwood’s zoning standards, said Dale Davis, the city’s planning director.
The proposed plan for new zoning rules migrates Greenwood’s current code with new pathways for building and simplified zones. Most commercial, residential and industrial zones would remain virtually the same, according to the zoning map.
Under this plan, a key change would be made to the number of single-family residential zones Greenwood has. The city has five categories a residential neighborhood can fit into—R-1, R-2, R-2A, R-2B and R-3—all based on the size of the homes and lots, and the architectural standards, he said.
The new code combines those into three categories—residential medium, residential large and residential attached.
"It presents the information more in digestible snippets. If you want to know your ‘residential large" standards, they’re all on one page," Davis said.
Commercial zone categories would also be combined and changed to commercial small, medium or large. The current code has one zone that allows office buildings only, but no retail. That would be done away with and added to the “commercial small” category, giving more flexibility to business owners.
If the plan is adopted, current business owners and homeowners will not be impacted directly by the changes, because all the zones are essentially the same. It just makes future land uses and changes clearer and easier to navigate, Davis said.
"If you plan to continue to operate as-is, then there is no extra action required," Davis said.
Most residential standards would remain the same in the overhauled plan, such as requiring single-family homes to have brick or stone masonry on the front. But new options will be added for custom home builders, which will accommodate several residents’ and the city’s desire to build more estate-level homes in the area, he said.
For example, if a builder wants to have a bigger garage than what is in the current code, or a different facade on a house, they would no longer have to go before the board of zoning appeals for consideration.
Another change includes leveling the standards across the city, Davis said. Standards for architecture and land use were added to the old code in various overlays as the city developed over the last few decades, but nothing was changed to make the code cohesive city-wide.
"When you used to develop in Greenwood and you had a commercial building, if you had that same building next to (Interstate) 65 and on (State Road) 135, or even on U.S. 31, it would be a different set of standards," Davis said.
The proposed plan now heads to the city council for consideration at its next meeting Sept. 21.
