City staff could begin rewriting Starkville’s development codes as soon as mid-June if aldermen adopt a proposed comprehensive plan at their next meeting.
Starkville is wrapping up its comprehensive planning exercise and will hold two public input sessions Thursday on the document that will help guide future development.
A copy of the draft can be found on the city’s website, CityofStarkville.org. Work sessions will be held at 2:30 and 5:30 p.m. in City Hall’s second floor conference room on Thursday.
Early versions of the plan identify future growth opportunities to the east, around Mississippi State University’s campus, and discourages growth in other directions since it will encourage an overall spatial imbalance in the city.
It suggests the city possibly annex those areas near MSU in the next few years.
The plan also breaks Starkville down not by specific land uses, but by place types, including natural and rural areas with open spaces; more traditional suburban and urban cores; and special districts.
Land use and suggested development types are dictated by the nature of the spaces, said Community Development Director Buddy Sanders.
“The old fashioned way of doing a comprehensive plan, as far as future use, was to say, ‘I want this area to be shopping malls and this area to be industry,'” Sanders said. “With this, we’re asking, ‘What kind of places do you want?”
Opportunities exist for homebuyers looking for sub-$250,000 properties, it states, and mixed-use and infill residential properties near downtown and the Cotton District could find success with millennials, young professionals and retirees.
Additionally, the report states Starkville is more likely to attract niche retail stores in those same walkable spaces and could bolster tourism with additional anchor attractions and lodging.
More downtown merchant space is needed to meet these needs since retail occupancy in the corridor is near 100 percent, it states, which could push developers to eye feeder roads into Main Street for development.
Big box developments are forecast to remain on the Highway 12 and Highway 82 corridors, while smaller, local-serving nodes could develop for fast-growing areas, like South Montgomery Street and Poor House Road.
Starkville’s department of community development previously held a public work session on the first draft of the plan in February. In that meeting, aldermen called upon Oktibbeha County supervisors to enact growth-controlling measures near the city’s periphery since the plan calls for annexation attempts.
Ward 3 Alderman David Little and Ward 5 Alderman Scott Maynard used the Poor House Road area as an example of where the city could inherit unrestrained and unchecked development.
Since that meeting, supervisors have shown a willingness to institute a limited review process for all development in outlying county areas. Specifically, site development permits would be required for new single-family dwellings, multi-family apartment complexes, commercial facilities, churches, schools and industrial developments.
Larger developments would require more-stringent reviews, including potential site visits and traffic studies, but all developments would be subject to a permitting process with tiered fees.
Unless major revisions are proposed during Thursday’s work session, aldermen are expected to receive a final presentation on the comprehensive plan early next month. If adopted in that meeting, Sanders said the city can then move toward rewriting development codes based on the comprehensive plan.
The process is expected to address two main problems: Starkville has more than 20 zoning designations and a subdivision ordinance rooted in the 1970s.
Code formatting, Sanders previously said, is expected to become more user-friendly with the addition of visual elements — charts, graphs and other cues — and the removal of redundant text.
Eliminating redundant text, modernizing rules and making codes easier to follow should provide the biggest and most immediate impact for developers, he previously said.
Carl Smith covers Starkville and Oktibbeha County for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter @StarkDispatch
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