Evaluation and Analysis of Residential Cluster Provisions: Resulting Development Patterns in the Charlotte Mecklenburg Region
Creators: name: Zambito, Peter
Publisher: name: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill University Libraries
Year: 2006

description: Low density cluster developments that preserve a significant proportion of natural and rural open spaces have the potential to perpetuate an interconnected open space network that preserves the natural form and function of lands at the margins of municipalities. This potential is most likely to be realized within municipalities that have well crafted regulations that actively promote these development patterns. This is at least in part, the observation made at the conclusion of this research. The mechanisms of promotion within these well crafted ordinances are the mandate and the incentive. It might seem logical to assume that ordinances that have a high level of mandate will always out perform the ordinances that rely on an aggressive incentive programs that work with the local and regional market forces. This is not the case with at least one prominent case within this study as the developments approved under both Huntersville's and Davidson's current ordinances are commensurate with each other even though Davidson's ordinance is mandatory and Huntersville's is highly incentivized. The evaluation of the region's ordinances reveals only one other ordinance aside from the above mentioned two, has incentives and or mandates that have the influence to promote cluster developments on a consistent basis. The remaining 7 ordinances all vary greatly in terms of strength of cluster provisions, but provide little if any incentive to developers to configure development into cluster subdivisions. These ordinances essentially only provide a regulatory option for cluster development with differing parameters. The evaluation of the resulting developments reveals that the ordinances with the most relevant mandates and incentives produce the development patterns that preserve the most open space and configure it most effectively. Within this study, there was not a perfect relationship between ordinance evaluation performance and performance of resulting development patterns however as alluded to above within the three top performing ordinances. It appears as if market considerations relating to base permissible densities and level of density bonuses afforded for open space preservation account for this reality. More specifically, ordinances with lower permissible densities (considerably below market demand) with aggressive incentive programs can effectively trade density for open space with qualitatively superior configuration, but may not score particularly well in a relative sense due to its lack of mandates. Again this is the case with Huntersville's current ordinance, which outperforms its previous ordinance in terms of development patterns and is commensurate with Davidson's current ordinance, yet scores lower than both on the ordinance evaluation. Aside from drawing comparisons, performing analyses, and drawing conclusions this Masters Project is designed to account for the various cluster provisions with the selected region and the resulting development patterns. The various tables and related commentary in this study clearly do this and avail rich detail for each ordinance and for each development and larger pattern.