Plan Implementation Tools

Regulatory

• Land Division Ordinances – Land division and subdivision ordinances provide standards and procedures for dividing and recording individual parcels of land within a community.
• Zoning Ordinances – Zoning regulates land uses, densities and dimensional standards such as lot sizes, setbacks and building height limitations.
• Overlay Zoning – An overlay zone is a special zoning district that is placed over existing base zones to protect specific resources.
• Adequate Public Facilities – APF regulations ensure that adequate public facilities, such as roads, transit facilities, and sewer and water are in place prior to allowing new.

Design-Based

• Planned Unit Development – A PUD is proposed and approved as a package; it allows a developer to meet overall community density and land use goals without being bound by existing zoning requirements.
• Conservation Design – Conservation design encourages the clustering of buildings and lots on a development site in order to preserve specific resources.
• Traditional Neighborhood Design – TND promotes compact, mixed use neighborhoods where residential, commercial and civic buildings are within close proximity to each other.

Financial

• Capital Improvement Plan – The CIP identifies the proposed timing, location and financing of capital improvements over a multi-year period.
• Tax Increment Financing – Tax increment financing is used to spur the development or redevelopment of a specified area.
• Impact Fees – An impact fee is used to recover the anticipated capital cost of providing public facilities needed to serve a new development.
• Purchase of Development Rights – PDR is a voluntary program used to permanently protect productive or sensitive landscapes while retaining private ownership and management of the land. 

Voluntary, Incentive-Based

• Transfer of Development Rights – TDR is a voluntary program that allows landowners to sell development rights from their land to a developer or other interested party who then can use those rights to increase the density of development at another designated location.
• Density Bonus – A density bonus permits developers to increase the maximum allowable development on a property in exchange for helping the community to achieve public policy goals.
• Conservation Easement – A conservation easement is a legal agreement voluntarily placed on a piece of property to restrict the development, management or use of the land.