Murray City passed a transit development ordinance in 2005 that allows narrower streets, encourages trees and pocket parks, and is designed to produce a new district that is not too densely built, but also won't look or feel anything like a typical single-use suburban subdivision.
Selected policy examples included, but were not limited to, approvals for capital improvements, street design standards, and development ordinances.
In addition to federal regulations that protect wetlands, a number of states and localities have enacted laws and ordinances that regulate development or other activities in such places.
Towns have found, as New Milford did with Stilson Hill Road, that the ordinance can't stop development.
Earlier this month, Madison was joined by its neighbors, Chatham Borough and Chatham Township, in filing a lawsuit to overturn the Florham Park ordinance that approved the development plan.
Stilson Hill Road, one of 24 roads in New Milford noted by the town's Scenic Road Ordinance, is undergoing residential development despite the protection the ordinance was supposed to give.
Jeffrey A. George, an independent tax assessor who represented several dozen residents, discovered a county ordinance that prohibits any development on Sapelo that causes "land value increases which could force removal of the indigenous population".
Maybe it's time to look to San Francisco for guidance; for many years we have had in place a voter-approved ordinance prohibiting high-rise development from casting shadows on our public parks during specified time periods.
Consequently, the township committee introduced zoning ordinances designed to restrict development in the area.
About 70 percent of the hamlet's land is protected from development; zoning ordinances make it difficult to change land use or increase density; and the commercial fishing industry, while threatened, is still active, local officials said.
