2010-252A (17) - Laserfiche WebLink

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In its 2007 report, Growing Cooler: The Evidence of Urban Development and Climate Change, the Urban Land Institute identifies different strategies that need to be adopted at the federal, state, and local level to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The recommended local government strategies include changing development rules to allow mixed-use compact development, streamlining the approval process for mixed-use compact development projects, and promoting infill development. Going forward, the county's policy should be to implement the local government strategies recommended by the Urban Land Institute to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Specific actions that the county should take include promoting mixed-use projects, strengthening pedestrian and vehicular connectivity requirements between adjacent developments, limiting rural sprawl resulting from the development of ranchettes in agricultural areas, and allowing traditional neighborhood design (TND) developments as conditional uses in conventional zoning districts. Loss of Airicultural Lands to Sprawl Development As indicated in the Economic Development Element, agriculture is one of the major industries in the county. Based on the amount of land designated for agriculture, the revenue generated and the number of employees, one of the most important resources of the county to be preserved is agricultural land. While planning for rural areas, the following issues should be considered: promoting agricultural diversification, maintaining the rural character of rural areas by separation of urban and rural land uses, protecting natural systems and environmentally sensitive areas, permitting the conversion of agricultural lands to other uses when and where appropriate, and maximizing the efficient provision and use of public facilities and services. Addressing the above issues and allowing a certain amount of development in agricultural areas is possible through application of innovative land development regulations. One such regulation is a requirement for all non-agricultural activities in rural and agricultural areas to be approved as Planned Developments (PD) with required clustering of residential and other non-agricultural uses and maintenance of enhanced open space. As discussed previously, one mechanism to accomplish that involves establishment of new towns. New town development can provide for a wide diversity of land uses in rural areas and, if needed, will allow a higher residential density than the density allowed in the agricultural portion of the county and allow for development of a portion of the project as commercial and office uses. To work successfully, new towns need to be self-sufficient communities that provide opportunities for the residents to live, work, shop, and attend recreational activities in the same place. Generally, a new town project can meet the intent of providing a self-sufficient community and capturing trips internally if it has sufficient size and density to support such a community. Since agricultural densities are as low as one unit per twenty acres, such densities are not suitable for new town projects; a new town project needs to have a higher density than the underlying agricultural density. By requiring residential and non-residential activities to be clustered, a new town designation can provide for the maximum use of open space. In so doing, the new town designation will Future Land Use Element 123