Those who've followed along and participated in the Unified Development Ordinance process so far know the road we've been down. Last fall, in Phase 01, we began by revisiting the Decatur Strategic Plan, considering areas where city goals were not supported by existing ordinances, and identifying areas to focus on. General approaches to addressing those areas were then integrated with the overall clean-up effort and, in a meeting January 8, were affirmed by residents -- together with a request that four areas (character, stormwater, sustainability/green building, and new zoning districts) be given further opportunity for community consideration and discussion...

The city’s Unified Development Ordinance (UDO) process wrapped up its second phase in May after four drill-down sessions explored  a variety of regulatory topics where additional resident input was needed...

The Strategic Plan’s goals for a more diversified housing mix reflect a gap — what we’re calling the missing middle — between our predominantly single-family residential and our downtown. This session explores the idea of transitional districts to accommodate things like live/work units, downtown-friendly townhouses, small-scale apartment buildings, neighborhood-scaled mixed use, cottage courts, and more, and gauges the circumstances under which such solutions might make sense...

Among the community priorities to emerge during 2010’s Strategic Plan effort was sustainability. Specifically, Principle C of the adopted plan, which states “Serve as good stewards of the environment and community resources” and, beneath that, Task 12B, which instructs city leadership to “update and create a unified land development ordinance that requires sustainable building practices throughout the community...”

While the bulk of the Unified Development Ordinance (UDO) project is cleaning up and better organizing our existing codes, it also presents opportunity to dig down into certain areas that have been identified by the community for further study. On Wednesday, April 16, that digging will lead us to focus on issues related to sustainability: high performance buildings, outdoor lighting standards, and parking...

Resisting the urge to describe the subject matter as “dry,” engineering consultant Bob Williams began last night’s presentation with an acknowledgement of the obvious: stormwater is not an especially exciting topic for most people. And yet, perhaps unsurprisingly here in Decatur, a healthy crowd turned out nonetheless -- drilling down on some key issues, speaking one-on-one with specialists, even staying late...

Drilling down on unresolved issues associated with the Unified Development Ordinance (UDO) got underway last night as roughly 50 residents, staff and elected officials gathered to consider the idea of community character: What it is, if it matters, and how/if it should be regulated. Perhaps unsurprisingly for a Decatur audience, sentiments were diverse -- very diverse -- from increased control over details like house size and lot coverage to loosening up regulations currently in place to removing some regulations altogether...