This title implements the city comprehensive plan and promotes the health, safety and general welfare of Clovis’s present and future inhabitants and businesses by:
A. Land Use Patterns and Community Character.
1. Establishing rational land use and growth patterns and encouraging the most appropriate use of individual pieces of land in accordance with the comprehensive plan;
2. Dividing the city into districts of distinct community character according to the use of land and buildings, the intensity of such use (including bulk and height), and the surrounding open space to promote health and safety;
3. Providing suitable transitions between areas of different community character to minimize the amount of incompatible land use and adverse impacts on property value;
4. Regulating and restricting the location and use of buildings, structures and land for trade, industry, residences, and other uses;
5. Providing protection from noise, glare, odor or vibration through buffers and other regulations;
6. Securing adequate natural light, clean air, privacy, convenient and safe access to property, and a safe environment;
7. Limiting the bulk, scale and density of new and existing structures to preserve the desired character of Clovis and its various neighborhoods for residents and to promote and encourage the community’s growth and economic health;
8. Encouraging high quality, attractive and marketable development for the resident and future population and businesses;
9. Providing standards limiting the location and spacing of uses considered to present problems for the city in terms of increased incidents of crime or other social problems.
B. Natural and Cultural Resources.
1. Protecting ground and surface water resources for safe and secure drinking water upon which the city’s population depend;
2. Controlling the density, open space, land use and vegetative cover so as to prevent ground and surface water contamination;
3. Protecting life and property by avoiding or lessening the hazards of flooding, stormwater accumulation, runoff or destabilization and movement of soils by district or performance standards.
C. Public Infrastructure.
1. Creating an environment that is safe from fire, flood and other dangers;
2. Protecting residents by facilitating development patterns that are cost effective to provide with public services;
3. Encouraging the most efficient use of existing and planned public facilities and utilities;
4. Ensuring adequate and safe roads and facilities by limiting land use intensity to the capacity of the roads or facilities and controlling access;
5. Protecting and enhancing a pattern of streets and arterial streets and highways that produces a unified, safe and efficient system for movement;
6. Reducing the danger and congestion of traffic on roads and highways by both limiting the number of friction points, such as intersections and driveways, and minimizing other hazards;
7. Protecting residential streets from degradation by nonresidential traffic;
8. Establishing and regulating setback lines along streets and highways, property lines and drainage facilities to ensure adequate and safe facilities;
9. Promoting economy in governmental expenditures;
10. Promoting and encouraging basic public services which meet the needs of the people of Clovis and provide for public safety and services that ensure the health of residents and businesses.
D. Justifiable Expectations.
1. Protecting and enhancing the values of land and buildings;
2. Seeking to balance the impact of regulations by permitting clustering and a greater variety of uses to offset restrictions;
3. Protecting landowners from adverse impacts of adjoining developments;
4. Protecting and respecting the justifiable reliance of existing residents and businesses on the continuation of existing, established and planned land use patterns;
5. Maintaining a desirable lifestyle for residents;
6. Protect residents’ welfare and morals by regulating adult uses that have created problems in the city, other cities in New Mexico, and around the nation.
E. Administration.
1. Defining the powers and duties of administrative officers and bodies necessary to administer this title;
2. Prescribing penalties for the violation of the provisions of this title.
Each purpose listed above serves to balance the interests of the general public of Clovis and those of individual property owners. (Ord. 1495-96 § 3(part), 1996).