Policies

COMMERCIAL DEVELOPMENT

In Salisbury, as in many cities across the country, new commercial development is oftentimes viewed by city planners and elected officials as the most challenging form of land use with which to deal. Residents participating in the public involvement process for the Strategic Growth Plan amplified this viewpoint. Concerns clearly expressed included an excess of strip commercial development, commercial encroachment into residential areas, the need for stronger buffering and landscaping requirements for commercial development, and the need for fewer driveways onto thoroughfares.

For the Salisbury Strategic Growth Plan all commercial land use types have been placed in one of five commercial categories. Regional commercial centers provide a broad range of goods and services offering comparison shopping and big ticket items such as furniture and appliances. Their trading areas can include the entire planning area and beyond. Regional commercial centers are heavy traffic generators and should be served by major thoroughfares. Because of the large numbers of people they employ, these commercial centers should also be located relatively close to significant housing areas.

Community commercial centers provide convenience goods and services to a smaller market than regional commercial centers. Their markets are intermediate between the neighborhood and the planning area. They should be encouraged to occur in a clustered fashion with planned, coordinated access to arterial streets. To reinforce their service to the community, these commercial centers should complement other community-oriented land uses such as schools, public parks and appropriate office developments.

Neighborhood commercial centers provide convenience goods and services purchased or used frequently, such as produce markets and Laundromats, to a small neighborhood area. Ideally, they occur in a tightly clustered configuration. Neighborhood commercial centers should be located so that all residential areas have easy access to convenience shopping facilities. However, they should be carefully controlled to prevent encroachment into residential neighborhoods. Additionally, care should be taken to prevent commercial activities with extensive market areas from locating around residential neighborhoods.

Highway oriented commercial uses provide goods and services to the traveling public and accommodate businesses which require extensive display and storage areas. Without proper safeguards, however, these areas may evolve into extensive lengths of strip commercial development containing a variety of business activities which are inappropriate and which result in traffic congestion, unsafe proliferation of curb cuts, and visual blight. Extreme caution should be taken to ensure that only those commercial activities which are truly highway oriented locate in these areas. Although it is often difficult to develop highway commercial areas as a unit, concentrations of businesses, adequate parking provisions, provision for coordinated ingress and egress and attention to aesthetic factors should be encouraged. They should be located only on major thoroughfares and the number of driveways serving these areas should be limited.

Rural area commercial development is intended to include "crossroads" commercial development typically found in a rural or agricultural setting. Uses such as feed stores, farm supply stores, hardware, and small general stores would generally be compatible with the rural commercial area category. It is important that proposed commercial uses allowed within rural commercial areas be carefully screened to be consistent with the intent and character of this commercial category.

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