City’s Unified Development Ordinance Aims to Protect Character or Neighborhoods
Greg Wilson/Anderson Observer
After years of work, Anderson City Council on Monday is expected to approve, on first reading, the new Unified Development Ordinance, or UDO, an effort to replace it with something more understandable and sustainable. Rather than relying primarily on a single lot-size figure, the proposed ordinance would judge development by its setting, including the character of the district, the type of housing, the shape of the street, the presence of sidewalks and trees, and the degree to which a new project manages to look less like an interruption and more like a neighborhood.
The UDO consolidates the city’s zoning, subdivision, and development rules into one document to make the rules of growth both more legible and more exacting — to give builders greater flexibility in some places while asking them to provide more in return to protect the character of neighborhoods.
Under the existing ordinance, the city’s residential landscape is arranged in tidy tiers. Residential-agricultural land requires lots of at least 80,000 square feet. The R-40 district calls for 40,000 square feet, R-20 for 20,000, R-15 for 15,000, R-10 for 10,000, and R-5 for 5,000. Multifamily districts are measured not by lot size but by units per acre, ranging from four in the residential-general district to 18 in RM-18.
The proposed UDO does not necessarily abandon those concerns, but it shifts the emphasis. Its proposed Suburban Residential category, for instance, is intended for low- to medium-density single-family development. In such places, the city may accept smaller lots or a somewhat higher concentration of homes than older rules might suggest, provided that the project compensates through design with sidewalks, street trees, buffers, varied architecture, garage placement, open space, and connections to surrounding development.
The goal is simple enough, seeing density is not merely a number. A subdivision of modest lots can feel orderly, green, and connected; a development of larger lots can still feel unwelcoming if it is all pavement, garage doors, blank walls, and ornamental trees planted after the older ones have been cleared away.
This is the bargain at the center of the UDO: flexibility for developers, but not freedom from obligations. A builder may be able to fit more homes into a suitable area, but the project must do more work to become part of the city around it.
The environmental provisions are similarly ambitious. In the proposed ordinance, green space is not meant to be the leftover territory between driveways, stormwater ponds, and rear property lines. It is treated as infrastructure with a public purpose, a measurable standard, and a role in shaping the quality of daily life.
The draft distinguishes among specimen trees, established trees, younger trees, and invasive species. Developers would need to prepare tree plans identifying what will stay, what will go, and what must be replaced. On vacant sites larger than 10 acres, residential development would be required to preserve 20 percent of existing tree canopy; nonresidential and mixed-use projects would retain 15 percent; and conservation areas identified in the comprehensive plan would require 30 percent retention.
The retained canopy cannot simply be an accidental scrap of woods at the far edge of a parcel. The ordinance requires canopy-retention areas to be at least 1,600 square feet and 20 feet wide at their narrowest point, and it places them in common open space or public recreation areas. It is a subtle and meaningful distinction that the city is asking that preserved land be part of the life of a development, rather than an inaccessible remnant behind it.
Landscaping and buffers would perform a related function. New projects could be required to use trees, shrubs, screening, and planted areas to soften the collisions that occur when apartments meet single-family homes, when parking lots meet streets, or when loading areas and mechanical equipment meet someone’s back yard. The UDO imagines greenery as a mediator, not merely attractive, but useful in reducing conflict, screening unattractive infrastructure, and preserving a sense of place.
The ordinance also seeks to make open space active rather than ceremonial. Depending on the project, the required gathering areas could include courtyards, pavilions, gazebos, outdoor seating, community gardens, dog parks, playgrounds, athletic courts, fountains, outdoor dining, and even amphitheaters. The ordinance suggests the city will be more wary of developments that advertise “green space” but deliver an empty lawn too small or too awkward for anyone to use.
For existing homeowners and businesses, the practical consequences will be limited, at least at first. The UDO is not intended to force a homeowner to rebuild a house, move a garage, install a sidewalk, or replant a yard simply because the rules have changed. Existing lawful uses and structures would generally remain even if they do not meet new standards, a status commonly known as legal nonconformity.
The more consequential moment comes when a property changes. A major addition, redevelopment, subdivision, replacement building, expanded business, redesigned site, new sign, or more intensive use could bring a project under the new standards. At that point, the owner may encounter requirements for landscaping, sidewalks, tree preservation, parking, building design, driveway access, lighting, traffic analysis, or stormwater management.
Signs may offer the clearest example of the transition. Existing legal signs that do not comply with the proposed rules could remain until Aug. 14, 2033, under a 10-year amortization period. But a nonconforming sign generally could not be enlarged, rebuilt, substantially altered, or changed through rebranding or ownership transfer without meeting the updated requirements.
The UDO is an argument about what the City of Anderson wants growth to look like. It does not promise that every new project will be small, nor does it insist that the city remain exactly as it is. Instead, it proposes that development earn its density through a better public realm: more shade, more sidewalks, more usable outdoor spaces, fewer blank facades and front-facing garages, and a greater recognition that the quality of one property affects the people living beside it.
