General Plan: The General Plan is the city's long-range guide to encouraging balanced growth and preserving the character of urban villages. The General Plan contains goals, policies and recommendations to accomplish the urban village concept as well as citywide and regional needs.
Zoning: Zoning is used to classify the way land is used to provide orderly growth, quality development and compatible land use relationships with available public facilities and services in the city. Zoning regulates the types of activities, the nature, height, building area and intensity of land uses to protect the public health, safety and welfare and promote community functionality and aesthetics.
Site Plan Review: The site plan is a graphic representation of the proposed project used as an organizational document to review and construct projects. City staff representing planning, traffic engineering and engineering participate in site plan review and approval to ensure technical compliance with the city's development standards, codes and ordinances. Site plan review also is used to promote the high quality visual appearance of development projects, promote design compatibility with surrounding land uses and ensure access to public facilities such as water, sewer, drainage facilities and street improvements.
Technical Plan Review: Landscape plans, grading and drainage, paving, water and sewer plans are considered major technical plan documents. These plans serve as construction documents for specific site improvements. The technical plans must be approved by the city to assure conformance with the approved site plan/subdivision plat. Construction of these improvements are inspected by the city for final acceptance.
Building Safety Plan Review: Building Plans include drawings, specifications and calculations indicating structural, architectural, electrical, mechanical, and plumbing components of a building. These plans serve as construction documents and must correlate with the approved site plan/subdivision plat.
Certificate of Occupancy: A Certificate of Occupancy (C of O) is issued to authorize the use or occupancy of a building or property. The C of O is issued only when the construction and/or use has passed city inspection to demonstrate that the project is substantially in compliance with the building Construction Code, zoning ordinance and other city codes relating to water and sewer, grading and drainage and streets and traffic.