The Fredericksburg City Council has approved the zoning changes necessary to bring its long-talked-about creative maker district to life.
At its latest meeting, the Fredericksburg City Council passed the unified development ordinance which creates the creative maker district, clearing the way for a rezoning of over 78 acres within Area 6, which lies between the Rappahannock River and the Rappahannock Canal. The new district also includes the a portion of the Princess Anne Street and the Jefferson Davis Highway corridors, known as the Old Mill District.
The move effectively changes the permitting processes for new businesses, axing the need for business owners to apply for and obtain expensive and time-consuming special-use permits from the city in order to locate a business there. That makes way for a host of new businesses and residential housing to open up in the area, city leaders say.
The types of businesses that the city hopes to attract to this new area would include
- Light manufacturing
- Small warehousing
- Building material sales
- Repair shops
- Open-air markets
Auto service and repair businesses such as Pitt’s Automotive and Little Tire Company already operate in that area.
The City Council held an open public comment period the week before the decision to address issues of concern from the public about the Creative Maker district. Concerned parties like the Canal Quarter Neighborhood Association and the Friends of the Rappahannock showed support for the project lauding it as an opportunity for both the city’s economic growth and environmental conservation.
Those issues were brought up by the aforementioned groups and are addressed as part of the new development ordinance which will work as the regulatory structure for the growth of the new district.
Another issue brought up before the ordinance’s approval was the concern that large businesses such as Amazon could come in and disrupt plans for the creative maker district. The council explained that this was unlikely to happen due to the form-based regulations built into the ordinance.
According to formbasedcodes.org, such regulations are designed to foster predictable results by using a physical form rather than separation of uses as the organizing principle of the code. Basically, this means that any warehouse that Amazon would need would be too small for their uses because of the regulations.
Fredericksburg has yet to announce when this change in codes will take place or how it will ultimately affect the existing automotive businesses in the area.
