Columbus, Georgia

February 24, 2005



To: Isaiah Hughley,

City Manager



From: Rick Jones, AICP

Director of Planning



Date: 2/24/2005



Re: Nonconforming Dumpsters Under the UDO

The recent discussion on the Section 4.2.1.C. concerning nonconforming

dumpsters under the new Unified Development Ordinance, may require some

additional explanation. As present the ordinance reads as follows:

?All existing nonconforming dumpsters in the Columbus Consolidated Government

jurisdiction shall be in compliance with these regulations no later than 18

months from the effective date of this UDO.?



Under Section 4.2.1., dumpsters are required to be screened on all four sides,

kept in good repair, and ?screened with materials of the same architectural

style, color and materials of the principal use.?



When the UDO was first developed, the review committee believed this section to

be a good requirement. In particular, was the requirement of using ?same

architectural style, color and materials? as the principal use. The reasoning

behind this was that dumpster area should conform in appearance to any new

constructed facility in the community. However, when Section 4.2.1.C. was

reviewed, several committee members had concerns on enforcing this action and

requested that this requirement be deleted. The reason for their concern is

simple.



Requiring existing businesses and nonprofit organizations to go back and

retrofit their dumpster sites was considered to be expensive, inconvenient and

almost unenforceable. Many of these sites cannot find the same materials as

their principal buildings, and in some cases, using their same materials may

not be what the ordinance is trying to achieve in the first place (i.e. metal

buildings may be required to use metal screens for their sites.)



The language of this section was inadvertently left in, when it should have

been removed. The concerns shared above are also concerns that staff has about

enforcing this section of the ordinance. If Council still wishes to pursue

this language, it might be best served by leaving out the requirement of ?same

architectural style, color and materials? and simply requiring that the

existing dumpsters at the time of this ordinance be screened and maintained.