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This mix of single - and two-family homes in Serenbe Hamlet (Chattahoochee Hill Country, Georgia) shows how flexible <br />standards can encourage high -quality design: <br />directing them not to approve similar re- <br />quests, or proper —directing staff to change <br />the maximum sign size. Either of the actions <br />should eliminate the need for variances. <br />Neighborhood Conservation Districts <br />In cities and counties with a long devel- <br />opment history, many subdivisions are <br />nonconforming. Often the problem arose <br />because areas were platted before zoning or <br />because the zoning was changed. The prob- <br />lem of nonconforming residential lots is <br />best addressed by creating a neighborhood <br />conservation (NC) district that matches ex- <br />isting conditions. The NC district is applied <br />to existing developed areas that were built <br />to different standards than current districts, <br />and no unplatted land may be zoned NC. <br />An example of the problem was a <br />community that zo years previously had <br />changed the frontage requirement for their <br />5,000-square-foot lots from 5o to 6o feet. <br />The result was that nearly half the homes <br />in the zone were nonconforming, requiring <br />many home owners to seek variances. This <br />was corrected by creating two neighbor- <br />hood conservation districts, an NC5n (nar- <br />row) and an NC5w (wide). The zoning map <br />was revised to place all 5,000-square-foot <br />lots in the proper class. The result was that <br />the existing 5,000-square-foot district was <br />eliminated and the map revised so that <br />all the nonconforming narrow lots became <br />conforming. Since these are residential <br />districts, all single-family NC districts can be <br />treated as one with a single -use table entry <br />and lot requirements in tabular form for <br />each district. <br />to 25-, 26 to 3o-, 31. to 35-, 36 to 4o-, and 41. <br />to 49-foot lot widths. The result of these two <br />approaches is that all, or nearly all, existing <br />lots become conforming, eliminating the <br />need for a variance. Where setbacks of exist- <br />ing homes are not uniform, the community <br />can use setback averaging to eliminate the <br />need to request a variance. <br />The problem of nonconforming residential lots <br />is best addressed by creating a neighborhood <br />conservation (NC) district that matches <br />existing conditions. <br />The NC district works very well when <br />the nonconforming areas are entire devel- <br />opments or blocks, and in most munici- <br />palities or counties this will be the case. <br />Occasionally single-family lot size may vary <br />within the block or development, which <br />would require parcel -by -parcel mapping that <br />would be tremendously costly and prone to <br />error. A different approach can be used for <br />these types of areas. All such areas would <br />be NC single family with a table showing <br />ranges of lot sizes, with a setback related to <br />each range. Thus, the table might show zo <br />Limited Uses <br />Limited uses are uses permitted by right, <br />provided they meet specific performance <br />criteria. The performance criteria could be <br />location, history, design, or other factors. <br />For example, in many older cities size- <br />able areas were developed in the 192os <br />through 195os with single-family homes, <br />even though the zoning permitted du- <br />plexes or multifamily buildings. Decades <br />later, developers saw opportunities to <br />replace single-family homes in these aging <br />neighborhoods with permitted duplexes or <br />ZONINGPRACTICE 6.12 <br />AMERICAN PLANNING ASSOCIATION Ipage 4 <br />