Gastonia retained Metrocology to analyze the City’s existing UDO, identify Chapters and Sections that could be revised, and/or replaced, and prepare zoning text to be adopted as supplemental regulations to serve as an interim step to a full rewrite of the UDO when budgets permitted. The supplemental nature of the new regulatory language would offer applicants an alternative to the very limited to non-existent higher-density, mixed-use development the City lacked.

The upgrades focus primarily on language that encourages a greater variety in housing product, often called “Missing Middle Housing”, as well as mixed use development in single buildings. Metrocology undertook the writing of the supplemental Code sections as part of the preparation of several small area plans to illustrate how the new regulations would inform development.