CODE Danville

The challenge

Danville's zoning ordinance had not been comprehensively revised since 2004. In 2024 the city adopted PLAN Danville, an award-winning comprehensive plan with clear land use goals and development priorities. The ordinance had to catch up to the plan, and quickly.

What we did

ZoneCo led the city through a comprehensive update, known as CODE Danville, that modernized the ordinance and aligned it with the city's current land use goals and long-term vision. We simplified and reorganized the regulations, consolidated standards, streamlined procedures, and introduced graphics and tables to improve day-to-day administration. The project addressed mixed-use development, university-related land uses, design standards, and the calibration of dimensional and development standards across zoning districts, including transitional housing.

A central goal was balancing neighborhood preservation with the areas identified for growth and change. The result is a more accessible, modern, and future-ready framework that supports housing, economic development, environmental resilience, and predictable implementation of the comprehensive plan.

Timeline

The diagnostic report was delivered in March 2025. A public hearing and vote, the first zoning update of its kind in two decades, followed in December 2025, and the code was adopted in January 2026. Sean Suder and Planning Director Renee Burton told the story of CODE Danville at the APA Virginia conference in Danville in August 2026.