Council Testifies Before Forsyth Planning Commission: Achieves Delay in Recommendation of Zoning Category Changes

The Council testified before the Forsyth Planning Commission on Tuesday, July 29th regarding the proposed changes to the RES3 Zoning Category. These changes would reverse the work done last year by the Council for Quality Growth, once again stifling residential development by limiting density and creating additional barriers to development. The letter below contains the comments submitted by the Council to the Forsyth County Planning Commission.

Click the image above to read the Council's letter
Click the image above to read the Council’s letter

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In July of 2013, the Council worked with the Board of Commissioners in Forsyth County on the Residential Zoning Category Changes to end with a final product, which included the following:

Changed RES3 to 10,000 SF lots with a density of 2.5 units per acre with 2000 SF heated floor space for a major subdivision and in addition to the changes to RES3 to add in RES4 that the minimum lot size be changed to 8000 SF, the density to 3.5 units per acre and the house size to 1250 SF heated floor space for a major subdivision.

Now, only one year later, the proposed changes currently before the Planning Commission include:
• The minimum lot size would be increased from 10,000 square feet to 11,500 square feet. A minimum average lot size of 13,000 square feet would be required.
• Density would be reduced from 2.5 to 2.1 units per acre (RES-2 is presently 2.0 units per acre).
• Minimum lot width would be increased from 65 to 70 feet.
• Minimum open space would be increased from 15 to 18 percent.

Click HERE to read more about the proposed changes.

We would ask the Planning Commission and Board of Commissioners what is the reason for the change being made so hastily and offer our services to work with them and the community to address their concerns.

To view the Council’s original letter of support of the positive changes in 2013, click HERE.

Forsyth County
Click the image above to view Forsyth County Demographics, as presented by the ARC’s Mike Alexander at the Council’s Advisory Committee.