This bill aims to specify how construction in Valle Niasmor is organised, planned and approved. It would implement a mixed-use zoning system and a procedure for building planning and approval, which aims to minimise disruption while preserving the consensus-based collective decision-making that characterises Valle Niasmor.
Land within Valle Niasmor is to be organised into zones, representing the primary intended use of the buildings to be built within.
Residential zones are places where entities are intended to live. This may be a single-occupant house, a house for multiple entities, an apartment building housing many entities, or something else that has a primary purpose of being the living area for one or more entities.
Commercial zones are for shops, offices, and other descriptions where goods or services are provided to entities.
Land may be set aside into agricultural zones - “agriculture” referring to a broad variety of raising plants and animals for any purpose. That is to say, crop farming, forestry, and animal husbandry all come under this umbrella.
However, land under the category of “agriculture” may be divided into those categories if the zoning plan calls for it.
Industrial processes are often loud, dangerous, or unsightly. As such, it is desirable to have an Industrial zoning type, for factories, power plants, refineries, and other similar things.
Land can be set aside for public use spaces, like parks or other recreational spaces.
Some zone types can be combined, allowing structures that serve multiple purposes to be built within these combined zones.
All zones may be combined with the exception of industrial and residential.
A zoning plan specifies which zones apply to which physical areas.
A new town plan can be enacted by new law replacing the current one.
This bill will enact the informal zoning plan that has been displayed in the Town Hall for several weeks as the official town plan as the starting point for future revisions.
In order to maintain consensus in Valle Niasmor, plans for new buildings must go through a standard approval process.
The first step is submitting your proposal to the accepted channel(s) for community discussion. This proposal should include the proposed location of the structure, the intended use(s), and your Planning Material, whether that's a floor plan, reference images, sketches, a screenshot from single player and/or the test server, or something else entirely to represent the proposal.
The proposal and the Planning Material may be separate, as long as the proposal is in commonly recognised channel (ie, the Town Planning board of the BBS) and the Planning Material is publicly viewable (ie, in the Town Planning office, or at the planned site, if it is not otherwise occupied).
Once the proposal is submitted, the Community Input phase begins. During this time, which lasts for a minimum of 48 real-time hours, residents can comment on the plans, and the entity that proposed it can revise the plans to fit with suggestions provided. This is also the part of the process where Objections can be raised.
Objections serve an official function in that if an Objection is raised to a project, it must go to a general vote if the Objection is not withdrawn before the end of the Community Input stage.
The final phase has two directions it can end up going, depending on whether there were outstanding Objections to the proposal.
In the event no Objections were raised to the building during the Community Input phase, the work may proceed as specified.
However, if there are outstanding Objections to the proposal, its approval must go to a general vote, as specified for laws in the constitution. If the vote returns an approval, the work may proceed, but if not, the entity proposing the new building may either put aside the proposal or return to the Community Input phase to try to reach a consensus with the public that raises no Objections.
