City Council to Discuss Unified Development Ordinance

Fredericksburg City Council will meet in work session Tuesday at 5 p.m. to discuss the Unified Development Ordinance (UDO).

The city's overhaul of zoning and development regulations is aimed at making the rules easier to understand, the process more efficient and the language more consistent.

The meeting will be held in the second floor conference room at City Hall.

The consolidated public hearing draft version of the UDO is complete and is available for review on the project website, at the "work products" tab.  The document and the UDO Procedures Manual will be reviewed during the work session. According to the City Manager's Office, the public hearing is still to be scheduled.

In March, Clarion Associates, a consultant firm the city hired to help create the Unified Development Ordinance (UDO), and city officials held community meetings at James Monroe High School, to receive input about the proposed new regulations. Very few people attended.

The new UDO raises the bar for development with street width, landscaping, fences, refuse and other aesthetic standards, Meadows said. The new ordinance proposal reduces the amount of parking that is required for projects and has stricter rules on landscaping.

The proposed UDO includes more than 35 pages of definitions, which are supposed to eliminate inconsistencies in the city's development regulations and make them easier to understand.

Tuesday's work session precedes the regular City Council Meeting, which begins in Council Chambers at 7:30 p.m.  A copy of the agenda is attached to this article as a PDF document.

Both the work session and the council meeting are open to the public.

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