Town of Richmond, MA GIS Viewer

Plan of Development Overlay Districts are enabled by Richmond City Code Section 30-950.

The intent is to “provide a means whereby City Council may establish overlay districts to determine compliance with the technical requirements of [the zoning ordinance] as well as compliance with site planning criteria in this chapter such as the relationship among the various elements of the plan (preservation of landscape, arrangement of buildings and spaces, functions of yards and spaces, parking and circulation), the relationship to the arrangement of abutting sites and to minimize potential adverse influences on and ensure compatibility with nearby uses”.Within each Plan of Development Overlay District, construction of any new building or any addition to an existing building when such new building or addition occupies more than 1,000 square feet of lot coverage will be required to undergo a Plan of Development review.Section 30-950.4 establishes specific districts. The Westover Hills Boulevard/Forest Hill Avenue Plan of Development Overlay District POD-1 does not have any particular requirements and new buildings and additions will be evaluated according to the criteria listed above. The Arts District Station/Monroe Ward POD Overlay District POD-2was adopted as a recommendation of the Pulse Corridor Plan, and all new buildings or additions in this district will be evaluated according to the six form elements outlined in the plan. Please refer to the Arts District/Monroe Ward POD Overlay Design Guidelines for more information about this process.

Street Frontage uses linear features which are digitized along the inner edge of sidewalks, coincident with the frontage of either parcel properties or building footprints. Instead of creating two separate feature classes, the Street Frontage features contain a “Frontage Type” attribute field, which is used to identify the street frontage zoning for the feature; Street-Oriented Commercial Frontage, or Priority Street. While a single linear feature cannot be attributed as both zoning types, two separate street frontage features may be overlapping (duplicated features with alternate FrontageType attributes), such that locations will show/map both zoning types exists along a street frontage. GIS mapping that shows only one of the two FrontageTypes exists means that there are not coincident features. Street-Oriented Commercial Frontage: Buildings on streets that are designated as Street-Oriented Commercial must have ground floor commercial uses, which activate the street edge and work toward creating a more walkable environment. Streets which are significant to a given property and the larger neighborhood, where buildings are required to face and engage with the street through fenestration and siting requirements.