A Code with Natural Charm

This past December, the City with Natural Charm approved a revised Future Land Use map geared toward preserving its natural and agrarian landscape. This new approach is also designed to create walkable Towns, Villages, and Hamlets that better connect people to Groveland’s wonderful outdoor habitat.  

To bring this vision to reality, the City is creating a brand new Community Development Code focused on developments relationship with nature and people through transect based zoning.  

Invented more than a century ago, the transect started as a management tool for our natural environment. The basic idea is pretty simple. A transect is a section, or zone, within an area that has its own set of rules. Certain activities occur in one zone that don’t occur in others but all zones embody one of the most fundamental principles of nature, which is diversity.  

The same approach is taken with transect based zoning. Instead of zones focused on separate uses, the new code will include transect zones that allow for a diversity of uses depending on their location within the community. These transects include zones such as Conservation , Agriculture , suburban Edges that feature larger residential lots, walkable Centers with smaller residential lots, and mixed use Cores with central gathering spaces,  All zones work together to create a diversified community that is carefully calibrated for Groveland’s residents and visitors.  

In the new code, Groveland’s transect zones will include the following key elements: 

• Walkable blocks and complete streets
• Parks, trails, and open space types
• Diverse housing types
• Mixed Use (retail, office, schools, residential)
• Low Impact Development
• Agrarian Urbanism 
• Vernacular Architecture, and more.  

During the next two months, we’ll explore these elements in more detail and demonstrate how they are paired together to create great communities that embody natural charm. In the meantime, you can view our image gallery which includes draft transect zone standards for Towns, Villages, and Hamlets.  

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