Regulatory
Zoning Ordinances fact sheet. Zoning regulates land uses, densities and dimensional standards such as lot sizes, setbacks and building height limitations.
Overlay Zoning – An overlay zone is a special zoning district that is placed over existing base zones to protect specific resources.
Zoning chapter by Kevin Struck, 34 pages
Zoning Nonconformities handbook, 114 pages
To Play the Game – You Need to Know the Rules: Town-County Relationships in Zoning Administration
Land Division Ordinances – Land division and subdivision ordinances provide standards and procedures for dividing and recording individual parcels of land within a community.
Adequate Public Facilities – APF regulations ensure that adequate public facilities, such as roads, transit facilities, and sewer and water are in place prior to allowing new.
Design-Based
Traditional Neighborhood Design – TND promotes compact, mixed use neighborhoods where residential, commercial and civic buildings are within close proximity to each other.
Planned Unit Development – A PUD is proposed and approved as a package; it allows a developer to meet overall community density and land use goals without being bound by existing zoning requirements.
Conservation Design – Conservation design encourages the clustering of buildings and lots on a development site in order to preserve specific resources.
Financial
Purchase of Development Rights – PDR is a voluntary program used to permanently protect productive or sensitive landscapes while retaining private ownership and management of the land.
Capital Improvement Plan – The CIP identifies the proposed timing, location and financing of capital improvements over a multi-year period.
Tax Increment Financing – Tax increment financing is used to spur the development or redevelopment of a specified area.
Impact Fees – An impact fee is used to recover the anticipated capital cost of providing public facilities needed to serve a new development.
Voluntary, Incentive-Based
Conservation Easement – A conservation easement is a legal agreement voluntarily placed on a piece of property to restrict the development, management or use of the land.
Transfer of Development Rights – TDR is a voluntary program that allows landowners to sell development rights from their land to a developer or other interested party who then can use those rights to increase the density of development at another designated location.
Density Bonus – A density bonus permits developers to increase the maximum allowable development on a property in exchange for helping the community to achieve public policy goals.