While many changes are smaller housekeeping items, one new idea on the table is a set of conservation-oriented standards that, if followed, would allow a developer to opt out of the usual public hearing process, said Jay Christelman, director of the county’s community development department.

The standards, which would only be allowed only in residential zones, would require elements like open space and buffer zones that the county wants to see, Christelman said. They also provide property owners a more predictable path than the usual process of going before the planning and zoning commission and the board of supervisors, where a host of conditions can be imposed on the project. The hope is to provide developers and landowners a logistically easier way to develop their property that would be an alternative to splitting their lots and selling off the smaller parcels to make a profit. So-called wildcat lot splits are allowed by state law as long as they are divided into five parcels or fewer and come with very few legal requirements, which means the county ends up with a disjointed patchwork of property boundaries, utility easements, road access and drainages, Christelman said.