Newberry Aims for Development Design Standards

NEWBERRY – The Newberry City Commission is continuing its work on a gateway overlay district for the city. Gateway overlay districts typically include a zoning district that extends on top of a base zoning district that regulates the uses, while the overlay zoning district regulates development standards. City staff report there are currently 17 different major projects in some stage of development in Newberry.

The Commission met in a workshop on Tuesday, March 29, to discuss specifics of the Gateway Overlay District with CHW Consultants who will develop design codes and bring that back to the Planning and Zoning Board for consideration and recommendation.

Newberry Senior Project Manager Ryan Thompson said that the Gateway Overlay areas under discussion are the roadways into the city, such as U.S. Highway 27/41 and State Road 26/West Newberry Road. He estimated that it would be June or July before new regulations stemming from this process would be enacted and he encouraged all stakeholders and citizens to participate in the process.

Based on comments from citizens, Thompson said that residents appreciate the downtown Historic District, but didn’t want the entire city to be in the same style. Under consideration are exposed parking lots along the corridor that should be smaller with no more than 100 parking spaces. Regulations could be written for those areas to require landscaping or other screening methods to minimize the visual impact of parking lots. Parking for larger commercial could be located behind the buildings similar to the way Town of Tioga has been structured.

In terms of architectural styles, the City could require that builders incorporate no fewer than three architectural elements such as roof lines, shutters and other elements that are cohesive but not “cookie cutter.”

CHW Senior Project Manager Caeli Tolar, Landscape Architect, reviewed site-specific elements such as density. She recommended a tree list be developed and minimum size requirements for installation be established in an effort to develop roadway buffers and maintain the character of the city.

Tolar summarized landscape buffers for three different roadway zones, the number of canopy trees, understory trees, shrubs and grasses that would be specific to each zone and broke some of the zones into commercial and non-commercial uses. She suggested that they attempt to limit the driveway entries onto the main road and instead have ingress/egress on a secondary road and that commercial buildings with double and triple frontage are preferable.

Mayor Jordan Marlowe said it would likely be June or July before the new guidelines would be completed.

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