April 12. By Dave Vieser. While most of the attention at last week’s Town Board Meeting was focused on the density changes in rural areas of Cornelius, the Town Board unanimously approved changes to the downtown area.

These changes approved by the board April 5 go into effect immediately:

1 Expand the Town Center category to include the existing Business Campus areas at the end of Zion Avenue.

2 Allow the consideration of proposals up to six stories in height. The height in the code (the law) did not change. It has been six stories since 1996.

3 Initiate project review utilizing the conditional zoning process focused on art, design and compatibility.

4 Eliminate the floor area ratio calculation. The floor area ratio is the relationship between the total amount of usable floor area that a building has, or has been permitted to have, and the total area of the lot on which the building stands.

Mayor Woody Washam said: “We had a meeting this week with proposers for an undisclosed project for downtown. They were so delighted to hear about the consideration of the code changes the town was discussing this evening. You are going to be amazed at this project if it eventually comes to our town.”