(A) Title. This title shall be known as the Center City Zoning Ordinance, except as referred to herein, where it shall be known as “this Title.”
(B) Intent and purpose. The intent of this title is to protect the public health, safety, and general welfare of the community and its people through the establishment of minimum regulations in regard to location, erection, construction, alteration, and use of structures and land. More specifically, it is the purpose of this title to:
(1) Guide the orderly development and redevelopment of the city, promote high quality urban design, and regulate land uses and the location and use of structures for residential, commercial, and other purposes consistent with the goals and policies of the city’s Comprehensive Plan.
(2) Assist in providing a physical environment that provides for the housing, employment, business, service, recreational, social, cultural, educational, and entertainment needs of the city and maintains and enhances a high quality of life for its residents.
(3) Provide a diversity of areas characterized by differing land use activities, scale and intensity, while maintaining neighborhood and community identity, and quality development by maintaining a balance between residential and non-residential land uses and compatibility of different land uses.
(4) Respect the city’s environmental setting and constraints, and meet the needs of the city for adequate public services and infrastructure.
(5) Ensure the maintenance of property within the city by requiring each owner, occupant, or other person in charge of any property to keep it in good repair and in compliance with the provisions of this title.
(6) Maintain and enhance the City of Center City’s small town character with a unique, distinctive, and secure environment for the city’s residents and businesses.
(7) To provide adequate light, air, and convenience of access to property.
(8) To prevent congestion in the public right-of-way and to prevent overcrowding of land and undue concentration of structures by regulating land, building, yards, and density of population.
(9) To provide for administration of this title and to provide for amendments and prescribe penalties for violation of such regulations.
(10) To define powers and duties of the city staff, the Board of Adjustment and Appeals, the Planning Commission, and the City Council in relation to this title.
(C) Relation to the city’s Comprehensive Plan. It is the policy of the city, that the city’s adopted Comprehensive Plan shall serve as the basis upon which land use and development shall be regulated and that the enforcement, amendment, and administration of this title be accomplished with due consideration of the recommendations contained in the city’s Comprehensive Plan as developed and amended from time to time by the city. The city recognizes the Comprehensive Plan as the policy for responsibility to regulate land use and development in accordance with the policies and purpose herein set forth.
(Ord. 2011-06-07A, passed 6-7-2011)