Comprehensive Master Plan - City of Alvin

Appendix A, Land Use Supplementlimitations and later developing with a higher density than the surroundingdeveloped properties.LICENSING • • •Communities have the ability to license businesses, though this may belimited to certain types of businesses. Restaurants and more recently, sexuallyoriented businesses are among the most common uses regulated by licensing.Licensing is more powerful than zoning because there are questions that canbe asked in a licensing hearing that would not be permissible in a zoninghearing, such as criminal records, which is illegal to ask in a zoning hearing.There is nothing that would prevent zoning standards from becomingphysical licensing standards. Licensing is best used to regulate troublesomeuses that have the potential for criminal activity. Attempting to use it in placeof zoning to control business development would be very difficult and risksbeing arbitrary as the procedures are not designed to handle development,and this mechanism protects different interests. The advantage is that itplaces enforcement responsibility on police and legal agencies that cover thecommunity 24/7 and are better equipped to address these types of violationsthan zoning officials.SELECTING an Implementation Strategy • • •Planning is meaningless without adequate implementation. The best planningwould involve all of the techniques discussed in the previous sections, whichwould provide local government with the finest and most tailoredimplementation package. In our initial recommendations most of the optionsinclude some form of zoning. There are communities that have official maps,access ordinances, sign ordinances, subdivision regulations, designguidelines, zoning, licensing, and often several other ordinances that all applyto the regulation of development. However, too many regulations in differentdocuments are confusing and often result in conflicts or conflicting language.Therefore, use of a single unified land development code is an advisableapproach. A unified development code combines all land use controls into asingle document with a logical structure that is friendly for its users. Thebuilding code would remain as a separate document simply due to itsvolume.The unified development code is our recommendation. We believe that thecode can have relatively few districts with generally two options forconsideration; minimal districts and more controlling districts.Page A-21