Land Use and Zoning 101: Comprehensive Plan

This is the first in a series of posts on Land Use and Zoning 101.

You may have heard, or seen that a lot of people are moving to the City of Raleigh and have been over the last couple of years. This post will walk through what tools the City uses to manage and plan for population growth. In North Carolina zoning and future growth have to follow some rules under state law.  That state law is the North Carolina General Statute 160D - Local Development and Planning Regulations. That state law sets the framework for the tools the City of Raleigh uses to plan for the future. There are two main tools: 

• The Comprehensive Plan, which includes:

  • The City’s Future Land Use Map 

  • Policies guiding the City’s growth and quality of life priorities 

  • Action items to address specific issues or make improvements 

• Zoning, which is the law controlling what, where  and how things are built in the City.

  • Unified Development Ordinance or UDO is the book that contains the zoning laws

The Comprehensive Plan is a document that sets a vision for how Cities should grow over the next 20 years. According to NC General Statute 160D a comprehensive plan should:

“set forth goals, policies and programs intended to guide the present and future physical, social and economic development of the jurisdiction”

In the City of Raleigh, we have the 2030 Comprehensive Plan that is updated about every five years. In North Carolina, it is up to the City to decide what elements to include in the Comprehensive Plan. The City of Raleigh has the following elements in their plan:

• Land Use

• Transportation

• Environmental Protection 

• Economic Development

• Housing

• Parks, Recreation and Open Space

• Public Utilities

• Community Facilities and Services 

• Urban Design

• Historic Preservation

• Arts and Culture

• Regional and Interjurisdictional Coordination

• Downtown Raleigh

• Area Specific Guidance (or small area plans)

• Implementation

Each chapter in the 2030 Comprehensive Plan has a set of policies, or guidelines and action items. Generally Comprehensive Plan chapters reflect the business plan of its department. For example, the Parks, Recreation and Cultural Resources Department manages the Parks, Recreation and Open Space Chapter. The Comprehensive Plan is managed by the Raleigh Planning and Development Department. One of the goals of this plan is to coordinate the City’s growth through the lenses of its many Departments. 

In part two, we will talk about the differences between policies and action items, as well as  how the Comprehensive Plan goes from policy to reality. Read it here.