York County, a fast growing county along the North Carolina/South Carolina border near Charlotte, engaged White Smith Cousino and Benchmark Planning to conduct a full rewrite of its Zoning and Subdivision Codes, including significant updates to the sign regulations.
We began the project with a series of community listening sessions to better understand the County’s current development standards and procedures. Following these sessions we prepared a summary of community input, which served as a preliminary guide to the development of the Zoning & Subdivision Codes Assessment. We drafted the new codes in a series of four modules and held virtual public workshops at key milestones during the project (the project began a few months before the COVID-19 pandemic).
In October and November 2021, we reviewed major proposed changes to the Codes with the Planning Commission and County Council. In December 2021, the Planning Commission unanimously recommended approval of the revised codes. County Council unanimously adopted the revised codes in February 2022.
Prior to our work on the complete code update, York County engaged WSC on a set of targeted updates to its Zoning Code related to special events and other temporary uses, industrial uses, breweries and wineries, event venues, and outdoor lighting.
