Escambia County
Escambia County Land Use Guidance
The Challenge
Land Development Code may seem like bureaucracy, but this important set of regulations shapes where communities live, work and play, serves as a guide for planning essential services, and promotes public health and safety by considering or requiring the separation of incompatible land uses, such as noisy industrial operations and residential areas.
Escambia County sought a partnership to both review its existing codes and ordinances to determine if sufficient language exists to compel equality regarding environmental risk and benefit for communities throughout Escambia County. The County needed a written assessment of the efficacy of Escambia County local codes and ordinances in upholding the interests of local communities, including: new environmental policies for planning staff and the Board to consider for adoption into the Escambia County Comprehensive Plan; recommendations to integrate this work with county-wide planning; and strategies for increasing public input into the recommendations utilizing both in-person and technology to reach citizens.
The Approach
The Escambia County Review of Codes and Ordinances provided analysis and recommendations that can be used to reduce incompatible land uses by identifying gaps and opportunities for improvement in existing policies, codes, ordinances, and procedures. Tailored stakeholder engagement was also critical to ensure objectives were met. The project iteratively integrated input from local officials, community leaders and residents, and particularly those impacted by incompatible land uses, to ensure concerns were heard and incorporated.
The project approach was broken into two primary tasks: 1) Engagement of the public, local officials, and County Commissioners, and 2) Review of codes and ordinances and providing recommendations. The tasks occurred concurrently and synergistically to integrate findings for greater potential impact for disadvantaged communities.
While the terms incompatible land use or nuisance use are not specifically defined in the Land Development Code, the project team defined an incompatible land use as a use that, if not mitigated, could result in real or perceived harmful impacts to nearby residents and neighborhoods. For the purposes of this work, such uses were identified in collaboration with county staff. A public input process that included a mailed and electronic survey as well as a public meeting was then used to prioritize and gain feedback on those land uses of most concern.
The resulting document provides considerations that may apply to all uses identified by County staff while especially focuses on the top three nuisance uses identified by Escambia County residents. This document is separated into three main sections. Section I: Incompatible Land Uses describes uses that are incompatible with the surrounding neighborhoods and provides a summary of public input gathered to help assess which land uses were perceived to be most incompatible with neighborhoods. Section II: Compliance Process Guidance discusses the conditions for compliance review in the conditional use process, and for each condition, includes the specific descriptive text from the Land Development Code, provides an interpretation of the text, and then provides guidance on questions county staff may consider when reviewing applications for incompatible land uses in the conditional use process. Finally, Section III: Incompatible Land Uses Checklists simplifies the guidance provided for each condition into two checklists that are tailored to support the review process for the three incompatible uses prioritized by residents as having the highest concern. One checklist is for county staff to support the review process. A second checklist mirrors the staff checklist but is less detailed and can be offered to developers to provide transparency in the conditional use process.
Project Partners
Community Resilience Center at The Water Institute
Williams Sale Partnership Ltd. (WSP)