Charlotte OKs new rulebook to guide development. Here’s how City Council voted.
Charlotte now has a new rulebook — for land development that is.
With a tight 6-4 vote, the City Council on Monday adopted the nearly 700 page Unified Development Ordinance. Mayor Pro Tem Julie Eiselt and others in support said the document would modernize development regulations in a fast-growing city.
Opponents of the UDO feared unintended consequences such as gentrification and less affordable housing. Most of the public scrutiny has focused on a provision to allow for denser housing to be built in traditionally single-family neighborhoods. That would include duplexes, triplexes and quadplexes in certain areas.
The six council members who voted in favor of the document were Eiselt, Larken Egleston, Greg Phipps, Braxton Winston, Dimple Ajmera and Malcolm Graham.
Council members Victoria Watlington, Matt Newton, Tariq Bokhari and Ed Driggs voted against the UDO.
Councilwoman Renee Johnson was not present at the meeting and was not allowed to participate remotely.
The UDO will go into effect June 1. The UDO is a single zoning and land development document. It rewrites and consolidates several existing, overlapping and sometimes conflicting codes for things such as sidewalks, trees and floodplains. It will set rules for what can be built where in Charlotte for years to come.
It is the first time all of the city’s development regulations have been consolidated into one document. The UDO charts a path to implement the goals of the 2040 Comprehensive Plan, which calls for equitable growth and development for Charlotte over the next two decades. City Council members narrowly passed the 2040 plan with a 6-5 vote last June after months of fierce debate.
The city’s interim planning director, Alyson Craig, and her staff, received a standing ovation after the vote. Some people at the meeting held up signs that said “say yes to the UDO” and “vote yes for more neighbors.”
Council discussion before UDO vote
The council members who voted in support of the UDO stressed the document is a living one, meaning it can be amended after adoption.
“While this document is not perfect — I’ll say it is not perfect — but it really put us on a trajectory for change for our community and how our community will grow and the rules of the game that will govern that growth,” Graham said.
Driggs said he appreciated the work that has gone into crafting the UDO over the last several years. But he felt there was a “social dimension” that cropped up around UDO discussions. It became about one group against another. Driggs said the document didn’t offer protections against the city’s affordable housing stock.
Before casting his no vote, Newton said the UDO will lead to gentrification. Allowing developers to build denser units without having to meet with the community will only benefit those developers, not the residents, Newton said. It will also lead to higher property values and taxes due to “higher-value structures” being built.
“As the development market catches on to the increased profitability of duplex and triplex development, property values for that type of development will rise even further,” Newton said. “This will be a double whammy for residents in gentrifying neighborhoods.”
More housing across the city can better match supply with demand, Winston said. That leads to more price stability in the housing market. The UDO doesn’t eliminate single-family zoning, he said, but does eliminate exclusionary zoning, which would hurt housing supply.
“The status quo of our land use optimizes involuntary displacement in our city,” Winston said.
Sustain Charlotte applauded the council’s vote. The nonprofit, which advocates for sustainable, smart growth, said in a statement after the vote the UDO will lead to an increase in housing supply.
“Hopefully, this will lead to a broader range of housing prices, help more families live in the city, and increase neighborhood diversity,” Meg Fencil, the group’s director of engagement and impact, said in the statement.
A proposed amendment fails
Councilwoman Victoria Watlington introduced an amendment about more dense housing units.
Watlington’s amendment proposed to delay the effective date of allowing duplexes and triplexes to be built in neighborhood zoning districts until the council approves an anti-displacement strategy. She pointed to the work of the Neighborhood Equity and Stabilization Commission, and giving the commission more time to do work around anti-displacement strategies.
Egleston said he couldn’t support the amendment because it didn’t allow for everyone, including city planning staff, to discuss and reach a compromise on the proposed change.
The amendment eventually failed in a 6-4 vote.
What does the UDO say?
The public got its first peek at the UDO in October. City staff received more than 1,200 public comments between October and March on everything from typos to tree protection.
Some revisions have received more attention than others. In April, the city scrapped its regulations around short-term rentals, citing a recent legal case and possible state legislation around the industry. The city proposed to separate all “whole dwelling” rentals — like Airbnbs — by 400 feet. The city was also requiring all rental owners to get a zoning permit.
The City Attorney’s Office recommended refraining from proposing any short-term rental regulations “at this time,” the Observer has reported.
Charlotte officials have also revised, but not scrapped, regulations around tree protections and parking.
Residents will still be required to get a permit to remove a tree on their property — as first proposed under the UDO. The regulations pertain to heritage trees, defined as native to North Carolina and 30 inches or greater in diameter. They don’t apply to diseased or hazardous trees.
The city is also calling for vehicle parking space minimums and maximums depending on whether you’re in a more residential, industrial or commercial part of the city.
This story was originally published August 22, 2022 at 6:53 PM.
