It was probably the shortest staff-written article in the Sunday Times-Dispatch, and I can’t even find it posted online, but the story headlined “New zoning district proposed” may be the most significant article in the newspaper yesterday. Chesterfield County, long the poster child for dysfunctional land use patterns in the Richmond metro region, is getting close to creating a Traditional Neighborhood Development zoning category.
The zoning category would streamline the application and approval process for New Urbanism-style development, writes Wesley P. Hester, by putting a single label on what now requires a complex mix of zoning categories. And just in time, too, because many of the big new projects proposed for Chesterfield, the fastest growing jurisdiction in the Richmond region, are built around mixed uses, traditional city blocks with alleyways, and pedestrian-friendly streetscapes. The more development that takes the form of TND neighborhoods, as opposed to the old helter-skelter development, the better off the county and its residents will be.
As I’ve long argued in this blog, TND development in well-planned projects makes far more efficient use of land and infrastructure than scattered, single-use development. Of course, the new zoning category is only a first step on a long road to recovery for Chesterfield, which has smeared growth inefficiently over a vast expanse of territory — and continues to see growth gravitate to the metropolitan edge toward the recently constructed U.S. 288. Even so, good development in the wrong location beats bad development in the wrong location. If approved, the measure will represent progress of a sort.
