Petersburg, Virginia

Zoning, Site Plan and Subdivision Ordinance
   

Petersburg is a city of 35,000 located within a 30-minute drive of downtown Richmond. The City's history dates back to the earliest days of English settlement of the New World when it was a port town on a tributary to the James River. The development pattern throughout the City reflects this layered history from the pre-Revolutionary war homes and buildings along the river, to the 1950's bus station and commercial corridor, to the modern chemical plant sequestered on the edge of town. The City has retained Duncan Associates to overhaul the development ordinances and create a site plan ordinance. Some goals for the new documents:

protection of the City's multiple historic districts, street tree planting requirements and parking lot landscaping standards, design requirements for 'gateway' corridors, streamlined permitting procedures, elimination of barriers to and incentives for mixed-use development, controls over the number of new curb cuts, new pedestrian mobility provisions, revised parking standards, conservation subdivision incentives, riparian buffer standards and other protections for watersheds, incorporation of Chesapeake Bay Act standards, updated impervious surface standards for priority watersheds and "connectivity" standards requiring multiple street connections in new subdivisions. The City's new codes will also include new design and construction standards for private roads, as well as provisions requiring that subdivision improvements be constructed or bonded prior to approval of final plats. The new ordinance will streamline development review procedures and authorize greater use of administrative approvals for development that complies with all ordinance standards.

Period:    August 2004 - Present
Team:      Duncan Associates

Contact:   Leonard Muse
                Planning Director
                804.733.2308