The Town of Pike Road, population 5,406 (2010), is located 25 miles southeast of the City of Montgomery in Montgomery County. As explained on the Town website, in the past, residents were concerned about their inability to manage growth and address transportation proposals while under County jurisdiction. Consequently, the Town incorporated in 1997. The Town now aims to be a model Smart Growth community, creating pedestrian-friendly, recreation-rich centers of development while protecting green space. The web site proudly proclaims that Pike Road was the first jurisdiction in Alabama to adopt a SmartCode. The SmartCode is mandatory in three land use sectors (O1, G3 and G4) but property owners can choose to use either the SmartCode or the Town’s conventional zoning code in all other sectors.
TDR is a critical part of the Pike Road SmartCode but it is difficult to find details in the code itself about how the mechanism works. For example, Table 14 B shows the following four TDR receiving zones.
- T-3: By right density 2 units/acre; by TDR density 6 units/acre
- T-4: By right density 4 units/acre; by TDR density 12 units/acre
- T-5: By right density 6 units/acre; by TDR density 24 units/acre
- T-6: By right density 12 units/acre; by TDR density 96 units/acre
Section 1403 explains that housing units can be converted to other functions, where permitted, at the following ratios.
- For Lodging: 2 bedrooms for each unit of Overall Density
- For Office or Retail: 1,000 square feet for each unit of Overall Density
The T2 zone has a by-right on-site maximum density limit of an average of one unit per 20 acres and cannot achieve bonus density by TDR. Based on a comparison with other SmartCodes, the Pike Road T2 would logically be the sending zone and one TDR would be generated by the preservation of each 20 acres of land in the T2. But these types of clarifications apparently appear in administrative procedures and/or other supporting documents based on the fact that the remainder of the SmartCode text is silent on TDR.