Amendments to the Sanford/Lee County Planning Department’s Unified Development Ordinance — which includes changes to both the wording and zoning maps — have been made public and will be up for public discussion this month, the city announced on Wednesday.
According to the planning department, the updates are the “final stages of an extensive project” that began six years ago. The amendments will, when followed, guide new residential neighborhoods within the context of the city’s “Plan SanLee” land use plan, which was adopted in 2018.
The Plan SanLee plan was a collaborative effort between the City of Sanford, Lee County and the Town of Broadway, intended to guide each jurisdiction for the next 10 to 20 years. “It is the vision of what the community wants to become and the steps needed to realize that vision,” it reads. In short, the plan is a response to community concerns about the area’s rapid growth — from increased traffic to loss of farmland and open spaces to capacity concerns for schools and public services.
The amendments can be viewed at www.sanfordnc.net/udo-amendments. The public is invited to leave their input using a form located on the site. The planning department will also host “drop-in sessions” on March 7 and March 12 from 4 to 7 p.m. on the first floor of the Buggy Building at 115 Chatham St. in downtown Sanford.
Among the most notable amendments:
- Increased time for developers of “major subdivisions” to complete site improvements from one to two years.
- Major subdivisions required to establish “legally responsible organizations” like HOAs to maintain all privately owned common features and amenities (like playgrounds and alleys).
- Master plans required for any subdivision consisting of more than one phase.
- Changes to the amount of “active open space” required for subdivisions (from 0% to anywhere between 2 and 7.5%, depending on zoning district).
- Subdivisions with fewer than 100 lots will be required to have anywhere between one and two “pocket parks” or one larger park with playground equipment or exercise facilities.
- More requirements for green space and open space for developments 10 acres or larger.
- Lots may not be proposed within flood hazard areas.
- Discouraged “excessive use” of cul-de-sacs and encouraged “stub streets” that connect adjoining properties for future development.
- More tree-lined streets, bus stops and mail kiosks.
- New standards for townhomes, encouraging front-facing homes with rear-loaded garages along existing streets. One goal is to “avoid the monolithic, “wall-like” look of townhomes. Amendment also includes new parking lot standards for townhomes.
- Allowing duplexes in certain zoning districts (the original plan nixed duplexes), near the “urban core” of Sanford (not in rural areas).
- No changes have been made to the plan to reduce high-density construction. According to the plan, “the rural, lowe-density character of Lee County should remain.” The intention of the plan is the encourage more development within existing developed areas of Sanford and Broadway “to discourage sprawl, traffic congestion and further strain on public utilities and services.”
Once public input is complete and any final revisions are made, staff will announce subsequent joint public hearings with the City of Sanford Planning Commission and City Council to consider the new zoning map and text amendments. After the Planning Commission reviews the amendments and makes a final recommendation, the changes will be presented to Sanford City Council for their consideration and final action.
Contact long-range planner David Montgomery at david.montgomery@sanfordnc.net for more information.
Ug. F HOAs. Everyone hates HOAs, don’t require them.
What would you do to prevent the “tragedy of the Town Commons” problem? I agree that HOA’s can suck, but much of that is based on how the HOA rules are written and then interpreted by less than common sense individuals.
Why can’t the city maintain roads and parks? Why privatize everything? Real cities maintain their own infrastructure, why does everything have to get done through HOAs in North Carolina? The entire reason I’m in Sanford in the first place is to escape the HOA tyranny. People buy into HOAs because they have to, not because they want to. If you supply housing without HOAs, people will happily buy it.
Sounds like a plan to me.
It’s not the city’s responsibility to supply housing. Private developers develop house to sale in order to make a profit.
If they city has the maintenance of a street or spec of land the public gets to use it. Keeping the public out of the subdivision is the key element to most such undertakings.
If the street is built to city specifications or NCDOT specs they city or State will take it for maintenance. It’s a private street because it was built cheap.
Most home buyers are totally ignorant of what they are buying into, they only see the up front price.
When you factor in the cost of providing services it takes a certain minimum density to for the city or county to come out to the good with new housing. A million dollars an acre generates about $5,500 a year for the City in takes. State shared revenues will generate about a $800 per person iirc (sales tax, Powell Bill, etc., etc).
Three houses at $350K generates about $5,800 in property taxes and if they average 2 people per house that another $4,800 for a total of $10,600. That will pay for half a police car. To pay for the police officer, equipment and all, including his car, and his retirement, and his offices costs about $115K per man. That’s 30 houses to pay for a police man. But you haven’t paid for the Yard Waste Collection, Fireman, Building Inspector, etc., etc.
The one house at a million dollars generate $6,300 a year for the City but the added two people and the house do not generate an additional need for any services. Keep this in mind for the City to break even the value density needs to be higher than $1 M an acre
V, all one need do to escape the HOA is go out into a rural area with road frontage on an NC maintained road, buy the land and stick well and septic on it.
But that means paying for your own driveway. It means well water that may be filled with iron. It means a septic tank that might pop out of the ground if it’s in sapprolitic brownstone soils. It means wild animals. It means hearing shotguns fired in hunting season. It means depending on the RVFD if your break a hip or your electric car sets the garage on fire.
It means you cut your grass and NC DOT’s grass.
The role of the City and the HOA is similar in that both serve to maintain the value of single family homes. That is the foundation of the American Economy – home ownership. All the laws are jiggered that way – for you to own your home and for your home to appreciate in value.
I am surprised more HOA’s don’t get shot up by disgruntled HOA members. If you visit Hell you will find that Dis has an HOA.
that’s really not true. My current house is in a newer development in Sanford on city water and has no HOA. There is zero need for HOAs, they are just a way of privatizing what should be public goods, like roads and parks. You know how many HOAs there are in New York City? Zero, though they have plenty of public roads, public parks and public swimming pools. HOAs are one of a group of old racist tools to exclude people from neighborhood amenities: if you make pools private, for example, then you can exclude people from them. They are only slightly more subtle than racial covenants in deeds — my guess of house in Charlotte actually had a covenant in its deed saying it could never be sold to a black person. Racial covenants are illegal now, and one day HOAs will be illegal too. We just aren’t there yet.
Every Condo Association in NYC is an HOA.
Condo associations and HOAs are legally different and serve different purposes. But the row houses and single family houses all over the city don’t have HOAs or condo boards. And the sky hasn’t fallen.
V needs to move somewhere else. If they don’t like Sanford as it is, either move or run for City Council and try to make it the way they want it to be.
You are aware that this is a story about a plan to *change* Sanford, aren’t you? Or did you not bother reading it?