County looks at Horizon West Town Center comprehensive plan update

With Orange County in the process of updating its 58-year-old development code, changes to the Horizon West Town Center’s comprehensive plan also could be on the way.

On Tuesday, Sept. 17, county officials and community members gathered at Independence Elementary School for a community meeting to discuss a proposed comprehensive plan text amendment to the future land-use element for the Town Center.

As a master-planned community, Horizon West has operated under its own comprehensive plan, which was adopted 20 years ago. This code sets guidelines for development and design to ensure developers adhere to the original planned concept of Horizon West.

Horizon West’s five villages operate under a different code than the Town Center does due to the difference in their intended purposes. Olan Hill, assistant manager in Orange County’s Planning Division, said that the five villages follow a more residential-based development pattern while the Town Center always was intended to be the regional employment center for southwest Orange County.

“The difference in the development pattern in the Town Center is, yes, it still allows for residential development … but it also allows for those uses that cannot be considered in the other five villages,” Hill said. “The Town Center does have a mix. It has some single-family neighborhoods, and it has more multifamily than some of the the other villages. We have a code that addresses the other five villages … but there’s a separate code called the Town Center Code that only applies to the more intensive development pattern in the Town Center.”

Under that current Town Center Code, development standards are more complex and there isn’t much room for flexibility, which requires developers to ask the county for waivers in the case of deviation from the code.

The proposed comprehensive plan text amendment would allow for implementation of a form-based code. This type of code focuses more on the overall form and quality of development, rather than separating development solely by land uses.

Developers would, instead, present their proposals and enter negotiation of details directly with the county, and county officials still would review the proposals against the existing comprehensive plan and design standards.

Hill said that the current code, including Orange County’s code, achieves compatibility by separating land uses. With a form-based code, he said, you can have a mixture of uses that can function well together and create synergy. The idea of using form-based code was brought forth, he said, by a group of developers. Current Town Center development wouldn’t be affected, and for new development the applicants would be able to opt into a form-based code approach.

“Right now when you’re approved through our (planned development), you’re locked into whatever you’ve asked for,” Hill said. “Form-based code focuses less on that and more on the form. It’s the flexibility part that our existing Town Center code is not acting like. It was well intended, everything in the code is great, but there’s not a lot of flexibility. It’s redundant and it’s also time consuming, both for the development, community and the residents.”

Hill told residents that this is a regulating plan and it doesn’t change anything in terms of the guiding principles of the Town Center and Horizon West at large. Form-based code, he said, will save time and money for county staff, developers and the community in general because waivers for small changes to development plans wouldn’t be necessary.

“Again, we’re not changing the entire comprehensive plan, we’re only changing about 16 policies that specifically address the Town Center and, more specifically, the process of how they’d be approved versus what you’d have to do today,” Hill said.

Residents asked why the Town Center’s form-based code would be implemented on an opt-in basis rather than just realigning the whole code. Hill answered that because Hamlin comprises about 50% of the Town Center and is developed under the current Town Center code, a complete code realignment would cause more inconsistency. Developers going forward, should the comprehensive plan text amendment be approved, could choose to follow the existing code or use the form-based approach.

Some also worried that this would allow an expedited development process, where developers wouldn’t have to go back to the county commissioners for approvals, and asked about the checks and balances. Hill responded that substantial changes and deviations still would require a waiver process. Smaller things that, for the most part, are consistent with the vision for Horizon West would be allowed under the form-based code.

“The code doesn’t allow that much flexibility where they can change their entire development program,” Hill said. “If you’re making substantial changes to the development plan, that triggers the process.”

The next step for this amendment is the Board of County Commissioners transmittal hearing at 2 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 22, in the County Commission chambers.