The Code and the GVL2040 Comprehensive Plan

GVL2040 articulates the community’s vision, core values and planning priorities, setting the stage for how Greenville hopes to evolve. And while it reflects the community’s desire to grow and commitment to growing in a specific way, the City’s new development code will actually do the heavy lifting to ensure these aspirations become reality. 

Throughout the GVL2040 process, the community repeatedly said that growth is important, but that housing affordability is a must. As a result, Greenville’s new development code will include language designed to address the expectation that housing affordability is the community’s top priority. 

GVL2040 also formalized Greenville’s commitment to preserving the character of existing neighborhoods and ensuring that new development does not occur at the expense of the city’s green spaces. 

To cope with development pressures and the imperative to keep housing costs reasonable, GVL2040 introduced the idea that most new development in Greenville over the next several decades should be directed to a small number of higher intensity areas, called nodes. This is how open space can be preserved and housing affordability achieved. By reducing the number of new development opportunities in many locations and greatly increasing the number of new development opportunities in a few locations, a percentage of new development designated as affordable becomes financially feasible. This can occur through a combination of conditional height and density allowances, which will be specified in the new code.

For example, more height and density might be permitted in McAlister Square, located at the intersection of Pleasantburg Drive and Laurens Road. The new code will address issues such as building height and the transition from taller buildings like those at McAlister Square (for example) to the one and two-story homes in surrounding neighborhoods, the need for physical buffers between the different uses and the imperative to redesign major corridors such as Laurens Road so they are more bike and pedestrian-friendly and relate better to adjoining neighborhoods.

Throughout the GVL2040 process, the community expressed concerns over congestion and sprawl and wanted more ways to connect different parts of the city, including more biking infrastructure, greater pedestrian orientation and improved bus services. As a result, the specifications for how to redevelop Greenville’s corridors to become multi-modal will be described in the new code. 

Essentially, where GVL2040 prioritizes housing affordability, open space and multi-modal connectivity at a very general level, the new development code will provide the playbook for implementing the community’s vision for where and how growth occurs and how the City’s planning priorities are achieved.