Urban Revitalization: Site plan point system helps standardize review process

Site plan approval is sometimes a highly subjective process, one in which politics can come into play.

In an effort to standardize the process and help ensure a stable urban growth pattern, Colleyville, Texas has adopted a scoring system for its commercial building district.

Colleyville, a suburb in the Dallas-Ft. Worth metro area, is a primarily residential community developed in heavily landscaped subdivisions with homes ranging in value from $300,000 to over $1 million. Its residents enjoy one of the lowest tax rates in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

Because Colleyville is surrounded by other cities, space available for development is scarce, leaving little room for trial and error.

So, rather than depend on the commercial real estate market to build asset value into development sites, the council studied the capital improvement and growth management needs of the State Highway 26 corridor where most of the commercial and industrial properties are located.

According to Doug Henderson, Colleyville’s community development manager, the city strove to prevent words like appropriate, harmonious, compatible and attractive from getting into its draft ordinance.

Rather, the city decided it needed an ordinance incorporating architectural standards written in concrete algebraic terms. This is because front yards, lot sizes, floor area ratios, the percentage of masonry construction and various other measurable zoning standards have been in place in American cities for decades and rarely face court challenges.

Moreover, Colleyville has had measurable tree preservation, site planning and landscaping ordinances on the books for years with no major problems.

The city council acknowledged in adopting its ordinance that it is difficult to quantify or regulate some subjective design aspects such as color or the “look” of a building. However, other design features with general community acceptance can be defined so as to discourage a “featureless redundancy,” says Henderson.

The council determined that future maintenance will require a stable tax base resulting from the preservation of high property values in every commercial and residential neighborhood. With that in mind, the council adopted its Design District Worksheet as part of the site plan application package submitted along with landscaping, parking and civil engineering drawings for review by city staff prior to issuance of building permits.

In the design model, points are given for horizontal and vertical changes in a building fa‡ade, for use of projections or other features that create shade, and for providing interesting design features, roof slopes or wall openings.

Architectural designers can generate points in any of the five categories, and even ignore some of the categories if they wish. Each project requires a minimum number of total points for approval, but there is no point minimum for any one of the five factors.

This performance-based system allows more creative freedom than systems that require committee review, says Henderson. Builders also appreciate the fact that there is no architectural review board to slow down the process.

The practical objective of the ordinance is to enhance visual interest in a building’s appearance from the street as well as to encourage more aesthetically pleasing designs.

Enforcement of the Design District ordinance means property owners in both residential and commercial districts need not worry about what vacant lots will look like in a few years, says Henderson. Fifteen projects have been approved since adoption of the ordinance.

For more information, contact Colleyville Community Development Manager Doug Henderson, (817) 577-7587.