Perry looks to change zoning rules
The city of Perry is working to change the zoning rules in some parts of town to allow for a more flexible and progressive land use ordinance.
Fifty-five property owners along General Courtney Hodges Boulevard received a letter this week inviting them to a public meeting at 5:30 p.m. Nov. 19 at the Perry Arts Center on Macon Road to talk about creating a "form-based code."
"We're hoping to mitigate some of the negative impacts that traditional zoning has had on American communities," said Robert Smith, the city's director of economic development. "Right now, our current zoning is a little bit restrictive, and we'd like for property owners and business owners to be able to utilize their land to its best and highest use."
Under the current zoning, Smith said, property owners along the corridor can't use their land for much other than services and retail. However, a form-based code can be tailored to open the area "for perhaps residential uses, maybe some light manufacturing," Smith said. "It would tie everything together in a way that would be more aesthetically pleasing, would promote more walkability, decrease the community's reliance on vehicles."
The form-based code also can be created to disallow some uses deemed unfavorable by the community. The new zoning would only apply to new development, Smith said.
The city contracted in August with TSW, an Atlanta-based consulting firm, for $48,080 to design and implement the city code in three areas beginning with General Courtney Hodges Boulevard. According to the city's timeline, the form-based code is set to be adopted in March. However, Smith said the project area along General Courtney Hodges Boulevard is still being finalized.
If it's successful, the form-based code will expand to Martin Luther King Jr. Drive and to downtown, Smith said.
"We'd like to have advantageous planning and zoning regulations citywide, so that's why we're exploring (this) in one of our critical commercial corridors right now, just to see how it works," Smith said.
Marty Myers, who owns a couple of acres on General Courtney Hodges Boulevard, said he received the city's letter about the upcoming meeting.
"I don't grasp the significance of it at all. ... I don't understand how it would help," he said.
Myers is also on the board of the city's Main Street program and is a member of the Perry Downtown Development Authority's Design Committee. Myers said form-based code has been talked about in those meetings, and "I definitely haven't gotten that impression from anybody that (form-based code) would free things up" for property owners.
"Maybe I need to read more about it, but the way I see it right now, I just don't see anything good for Perry coming out of it," said Myers, who plans to attend next week's meeting.
Smith said city officials visited the city of Woodstock earlier this year to see the result of a form-based code designed by TSW.
"What we're kind of envisioning our code to look like is similar to what has been done in Woodstock," Smith said.
Richard McLeod, now a senior planner for the city of Alpharetta, was the community development director for Woodstock when it worked with TSW in 2005 to create a form-based code downtown.
"When we started, it was a little rough but we took 14 months, I think, to put the plan together," McLeod said.
Though the new, multi-story, mixed-use buildings looked more pleasing to residents of Woodstock during the planning stages, McLeod said some were turned off upon discovering the allowance for higher density.
"When you talk about density, (people) will clam up and get real protective of what they have and they'll say, 'low density is better,'" McLeod said. "But time and time again, when we showed them the buildings without any mention of what density was allowed, they loved it."
The best thing to come from a form-based code in Woodstock was "the look and feel" of the area, McLeod said.
Smith said the city "would like to see a slight increase in density, though nothing on the scale of what is allowed in Woodstock."
For more information about form-based code, visit www.formbasedcodes.org online. To read the Perry Land Development Ordinance, visit https://goo.gl/xUprJM.
To contact writer Laura Corley, call 744-4334 or follow her on Twitter @Lauraecor.
This story was originally published November 11, 2015 at 6:04 PM with the headline "Perry looks to change zoning rules ."