The city of Greenville held its last Code Connection virtual session Nov. 9 in the lead-up to the release of its final development draft.
In the 11th session of the monthly briefing on how the city is reshaping its development codes to conform with the GVL2040 plan, the city hopes to have a draft of the code ready by December for public review and comment. It hopes to have the development code ready to start adoption around the first quarter of 2023.
The goal is to make the plan as user-friendly as possible, with easy-to-understand standards that use charts to take much of the confusion out of development codes.
Along with the updated development code, the city’s Engineering Design Specifications Manual, a guide for developers, will be updated, with changes to the following:
- Stormwater
- Street standards
- Construction mitigation standards
- Traffic analysis
- Easements
“We want people to start speaking the same language,” said Christy Dodson with Code Studio, a company working with the city on its revamped code.
Presenters said the city can’t mandate affordable housing by state law. Greenville will be able to incentivize it through plans like density bonuses that allow for higher buildings in exchange for some affordable units in each development.
Presenters defined affordable in terms of 10% of a project at 80% area median income or 5% at 60% area median income.
