Portsmouth
- Adopted: 2018
- Client: City of Portsmouth, VA
- Project Type: D-2 District Land Use Study
About This Project
The City of Portsmouth retained McBride Dale Clarion to complete an update to the City’s Comprehensive Plan. In association with the overall update, the city decided to conduct a more in-depth Land Use Study for the Uptown area of Portsmouth, also known as the D-2 Zoning District.
In 2009, Portsmouth approved a form based code for this area, the D-2 Form Based Code. This code was intended to transform the district from its current state to an urban mixed-use area. The regulations were lofty and ambitious and the market trends and demands have not aligned with the Code’s vision and intent.
The city identified that the existing D-2 Form Based Code was not the right tool to encourage growth and development in this district and initiated the D-2/Uptown Land Use Study as the first step in the process to update the zoning regulations that will apply to this area. MDC completed this Land Use Study in Summer, 2017.
The City’s Comprehensive Plan was adopted in 2018. The final adopted plan is an innovative interactive strategic plan endorsed by David Rouse from APA as a pilot project for Sustainability Scoring. The plan can be downloaded at http://www.buildoneportsmouth.org.