Greene County’s Board of Commissioners has approved amending the consideration of the county’s Land Use Regulations for subdivision regulations during their July 8 meeting.
The BOC discussed both the Land Use Regulations’ Subdivision (Appendix A) and Zoning ordinances (Appendix B) for the majority of the meeting. The approved amendment for the Land Use regulations (Appendix A) would include changes to “the establishment of parent parcels and minor subdivision approvals.”
The board has yet to approve the zoning regulations and will discuss the issue further at their August meeting to make any necessary changes.
“The proposed changes aim to address changes to the Appendix B zoning ordinance, including changes in the zoning ordinance to the area in yard size requirements, and specifically minimum lot sizes and density in the RM in a multi-family residential district," Greene County manager David Crawley said.
Changes in the zoning ordinance would additionally apply to areas including “R1 low-density residential district, LR1 Lake Shore single-family residential recreation district, R2 Medium-density residential district, and the LR2 lakeshore multi-family residential recreation district.”
The amendments would also impact townhomes, condominiums, apartments, and multi-family dwellings.
Greene County’s building and zoning director, Chuck Wooley, spoke at the July 8 meeting, explaining how the ordinance changes would work.
“These changes are one part of a two-part process to slow high-density growth in the county, with the emphasis being in the West Greene character area,” Wooley said. “The second part of the process will begin with an amendment to the future land use and comprehensive plan of that area, and that plan kickoff meeting will begin on July 29.”
Multiple residents spoke to the board during the meeting, addressing their concerns about the changes.
“This issue has been ongoing for about 20 years,” Greene County resident Mark Shulz said. “There was a recommendation at the recent planning and zoning meeting that maybe we would delay this, and maybe we can do this along the comprehensive plan to figure out what the overarching plan is for Greene County residents.”
Later in the meeting, the BOC discussed the changes set to take place within Appendix A of the current Land Use regulations.
“Proposed changes aim to address changes towards Appendix A: Subdivision regulations, including the establishment of parent parcels and minor subdivision approvals,” Crawley said.
Wooley spoke again to the board regarding the Land Use Regulations to explain the building and zoning challenges associated with minor subdivisions and to propose solutions to assist affected property owners.
“Minor subdivisions are three lots, and anything over is a regular subdivision,” Wooley said. “When you have a parent parcel of land that gets split twice, that makes three, and you can’t split it again as a minor subdivision.”
According to Wooley, his proposal for changing the regulation would allow owners to split the parcel twice under a minor subdivision.
“So if you have children and want to give them some land to live on, this will give them a mechanism to be able to do that,” Wolley said.
In other business for July 8, the BOC:
• Approved the considerations of four rezoning requests for Oconee Land Development Co. LLC, totaling 38.61 acres.
• 31.76 acres will be zoned on the north and west of Cherokee Drive, from B1 to PUD.
• 0.55 acres on Lake Oconee Parkway will be rezoned from PUD to B1, and the remaining 6.30 acres will be rezoned from PUD to PUD with a STRO District.
• The BOC entered an executive session to discuss potential litigations and approved the consideration of objecting to a proposed annexation by the city of Greensboro.