Ord 1985-080 - Laserfiche WebLink

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-12- 2. A PDD zoning district shall not be approved within the city limits of San Marcos if the site cannot be developed and meet all other City development standards associated with drainage, streets, water, and wastewater or would create an adverse impact on the City's infrastructure as determined by the Director of Public Works. 3. A PDD subdivision shall not be approved unless the subdivision and its supporting infrastructure are available or will be made available to the subdivision at the City's existing standards within two years of approval of the plat. Sec. 300. Bufferyards. 301. Purpose The provisions of this section for the installation and maintenance of bufferyards are intended to protect the character and stability of residential areas to conserve the value of the land and buildings of the properties and neighborhood adjacent to a PDD, and to enhance the aesthetic and visual image of the City. The bufferyard is a unit of yard together with the plantings required thereon. The type and amount of planting for each bufferyard requirement shall be designed to eliminate or minimize potential negative impacts such as dirt, litter, noise, glare of lights, signs, and unsightly buildings between different land use intensity classes. The planting materials included within a bufferyard should be calculated to insure they do, in fact, function as buffers and should be an appropriate landscape design so that the landscaping will form an effective visual barrier. Example diagrams of acceptable bufferyards are included in Exhibit A at the end of this article. Other combinations of bufferyard planting are acceptable depending on existing vegetation and differences in land use intensity classes. COMMENTARY: One of zoning's most important functions is the division of land uses into districts which, at least in theory, contain compatible uses. However, the wide variety of uses permitted within a PDD do not produce similar negative characteristics when bufferyards are designed to minimize the more serious negative impacts of adjacent uses within a PDD. 302. Land Use Intensity Classes For the purposes of determining bufferyard requirements, the following table classifies land uses authorized in a PDD according to their respective impacts. More intense uses whose impacts may include increased density, increased bulk and height of buildings, increased traffic with associated noise and congestion, and other negative impacts require buffering to protect less intensive neighboring uses.