ORD-1999-010 Text Amendments - Flexible Development Provisions Zoning Ordinance and Subdivision Regulations

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42 I the provision be removed. Homeowners would no longer have on-site conservation land 2 included on their deed in fee simple. A new approach, called the conservation cluster 3 approach, would replace the current conservation designation. He presented a visual example 4 of the conservation cluster option which has smaller lots with the land to be preserved being 5 , clustered in one area. This approach leaves significant amounts of land undeveloped and 6 available for the community to enjoy for recreation and for its visual effect. The conservation 7 land would be controlled by a homeowners association, a conservancy or by the county, if the 8 county had a corridor planned in the general area. He indicated that perimeter buffers is a new 9 requirement being suggested in the Flexible Development Standards. This refers to perimeter 10 buffers which would allow more buffer for the adjacent properties. Part of the Flexible I I Development Standards was an offshoot of the Rural Preservation goals that were completed in 12 1994/1995. Roughly one-half of the property would be in the conservation areas. The 13 committee also considered where the conservation areas should be located and agreed that it !4 made sense to locate them along stream buffers, wooded areas and/or meadows which would ,5 preserve the general character of the area. The conservation areas need to be contiguous so 6 that they can be enjoyed by the majority of the people. He mentioned that they are now 7 beginning to research the landscape section of the code and will be presenting new landscape 8 requirements to the Board of County Commissioners to help augment the roadside buffers. 9 That section of the code is scheduled to be presented to the Board of County Commissioners V sometime in the fall. 1 2 Although the estate option has never been used, it states that two acres of each estate :3 could be placed in a conservation area and two acres of that area could be used for septic :4 fields. That meant that one acre of the two acre conservation area could be encroached upon 5 for septic fields. It does not seem necessary to encroach upon a conservation area for this S additional 40,000 square feet given that there are already 80,000 square feet-on the 7 unencumbered part of the lot. The Ordinance Review Committee (ORC) is suggesting that the 8 encroachment of septic fields on conservation areas be decreased to 25% of what would 9 normally be allowed in the lot. That is being suggested in both the estate option and the 0 conservation cluster option. Currently the code allows a 50% encroachment upon all of the I conservation easements. The Planning Staff will continue to research the question of how 2 much encroachment, if any, is actually necessary within the conservation area. -Depending on 3 what size lot is being considered, it may be possible to scale the encroachment back even 4 further. 6 6 The conservation cluster option is a much smaller lot which results in a high degree of 7 open space. This option would most likely be used in areas where public water and sewer were 8 already available. The lots would be approximately V2acre in size and would not be expected to 9 serve a septic field. D I QUESTIONS AND/OR COMMENTS FROM THE BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS: 2 3 Commissioner Brown asked if the village cluster approach was going to be discussed. 5 Mr. Benedict stated that they were not suggesting changes to the village cluster D approach. This is another approach which would require public water and sewer and there 7 have been no applications requesting this approach.