2 - Town of Colchester

Single Family Development
Patterns
Conventional
A parcel of land is divided
into residential lots with little
or no dedicated open space.
Open Space
A parcel of land is divided
into roughly the same number
of residential lots that are
smaller in area than in a
conventional development
and the remaining area is
preserved or dedicated as
open space.
Promote Open Space Development Patterns
Colchester’s current zoning and subdivision regulations promote a pattern of residential development that, in the long
run, will likely detract from the rural character that residents of the community have indicated is important to them. In
other words, current regulations are creating the types of development patterns that residents see elsewhere and have
indicated they do not want in Colchester.
For example, many subdivisions result in homes strung out along existing roads or in conventional subdivisions with very
little preserved open space or with undeveloped lands isolated away from the road. This pattern results from a “cookie
cutter” approach to subdivision design that is determined more by the dimensional standards in the regulations than by
the natural capabilities of the parcel being developed.
There are several reasons for this. Colchester defines buildable land in the zoning regulations as “contiguous land
exclusive of wetlands, watercourses, waterbodies, ledge outcrops, and slopes greater than 25 percent.” Each zoning
district requires that each lot have a minimum lot area, each lot have a minimum buildable area, and that a square of a
certain dimension in the lot contain the building site. For example, the R-60 District requires a minimum of 60,000
square feet of total lot area, a minimum of 45,000 square feet of buildable area, a 150 foot square building site, and a
minimum of 200 feet of frontage on collector or arterial roads or 150 feet of frontage on local roads. While these
regulations are designed to ensure that building lots contain adequate areas for the provision of septic systems and usable
areas for home sites, they result in a mechanical approach to subdivision design.
In addition, a corollary effect of this requirement has been for developers to “lot off” sites along existing roads in
Colchester since it may not be cost-effective to build a new road to serve only a few lots in the interior of a parcel. In
fact, examination of the land use map will reveal several locations where this type of development pattern has emerged.
Colchester can do better. The Plan recommends that Colchester consider modifying local regulations to encourage what
are known as open space development patterns. The graphic on the facing page illustrates the difference between
“conventional” development patterns and “open space” development patterns.
60