1. The purpose of the design standards are:
A. To promote a compact, mixed use community which serves as an activity center for the surrounding area and to promote revitalization, direct reinvestment, and sustain the economic vitality while being sensitive to design context and individual neighborhood character;
B. To ensure the provision of a full range of public facilities, services, and infrastructure (water service, sewer service, transportation, and communications) and allow the coordinated expansion of such facilities the economic vitality while being sensitive to design context and individual neighborhood character;
C. To incorporate flexibility into traditionally regulated areas and promote a unified streetscape to strengthen the visual and physical character of existing neighborhoods. The intent is to retain and promote the existing businesses and to facilitate new development that contributes to and upgrades established neighborhoods;
D. To attract new commercial and professional businesses that provide quality jobs. To support community-based business development. To create a sustainable economy that connects people with job opportunities;
E. To improve the transportation system to service employers, employees and community members. To provide adequate, affordable, and accessible mass and specialized transit services. To develop aesthetically pleasing, interconnected transportation systems that encourage walking, biking, and public transit, and discourage high-speed traffic which will protect and improve the quality of our air;
F. To encourage the preservation, adaptation, re-use, and protection of the integrity of historic buildings and structures, archaeological sites, and other cultural resources. To design new buildings to complement the architectural character of the surrounding neighborhood;
G. To allow for a range of housing types at a range of densities on land sufficient to accommodate current and projected housing needs. To increase housing choice, affordability, diversity in housing types and tenure (rental and ownership options);
H. To improve the character and form of development in order to enhance the quality of life for current and new residents. To establish cohesive, safe neighborhoods, and a clean, healthy physical environment. To design new communities to accommodate citizens from a wide range of economic levels, occupations, age groups, backgrounds, and interests; and
I. To preserve, protect, enhance, and restore the native plant and animal diversity and functioning natural systems. To develop a permanently preserved open space system that provides a diversity of publicly accessible open space resources in the form of town squares, greenways, and parks. To protect, conserve, and improve surface and groundwater resources.
2. The intent of the design standards is to provide clear, quantitative review standards that are easy to administer and offer certainty to developers and citizens alike while maintaining a degree of design flexibility to allow and encourage creative site and building designs and encourage alternative design solutions that result in a better, distinctive product.
(Ord. 614, 5/11/2015)