Residential sprawl is highly undesirable. The Planned Residential (PR) District is in this title as a floating zone, as no land was zoned planned residential when this title was adopted. All existing residential development was classified as Residential (R); a district that does not permit new rezonings. There are situations where, in the future, it may be in the best interest of the County to permit limited residential development in one of three (3) forms: recreational community, clustered development, and single-family residential subdivision. The provisions of section 8-1-4-3, "Planned Residential (PR) District", of this title, outline the rationale for each of these residential options. A zoning map amendment to the PR District shall be adopted only with the approval of a planned development for the specific development option. This section provides the standards upon which each of the map amendments must be judged.
A. All Residential Options: All residential rezoning shall meet the following criteria:
1. A special service district shall be created for all the districts to provide for the maintenance of common open space, stormwater systems, water or sewer systems and any recreation facilities.
2. The approval of a site development permit pursuant to section 8-14-4, "Site Development Permit", of this chapter.
3. The site's LESA score shall comply with the County's adopted land evaluation and site assessment system plan.
B. Recreational Community Planned Development: This type of planned development is intended as a recreation community with access to golf, equestrian, or other recreational open space areas being the purpose of the residential community. The following standards shall be met in granting approval of a rezoning to this use:
1. The site's topography shall be significantly influenced by river or stream corridors.
2. A comprehensive recreational theme for the development to use the required open space to create a community where use or visual access to the recreational areas shall be provided by the site plan. All residents shall have access to the recreational facilities by trails that can be used at any time of the day.
C. Conservation Development: The county cannot control annexation or the preservation of agriculture when a municipality makes large annexations. In order to protect the agricultural areas, the county preservation cluster places the farmlands in a conservation easement. When the county determines that allowing a higher density of residential development, in order to create a greenbelt around one of the municipalities, it may determine that approving a conservation easement is in its best interest. The following criteria shall be met in granting a map amendment to the planned residential (PR) district to allow higher density conservation developments:
1. The site is outside the existing sewer service area and/or facility planning area of any municipality.
2. The site is not between two (2) or more municipalities, whose sewer service areas are less than two (2) miles apart.
3. Land further away from the urban service boundary is currently in agricultural use.
4. The agricultural open space creates a barrier to further expansion of development into agricultural areas. (Ord. 10-001, 1-12-2010)