Figure 5: Transit Corridors
Outside of these nodes and corridors, however, employment and residential densities are low, averaging about 2 units per acre for residential and perhaps no more than 15 employees per acre for employment areas. Nevertheless, 60% of Charlotte's jobs fall within these five corridors (Figure 5). Multi-family, by design, has been dispersed throughout the city's neighborhoods. Planned Commercial developments, moreover, fall largely outside of these corridors; about 75% of "pipeline" development is outside the five corridors (defined as roughly a two-three mile wide band). Recent multi-family approvals have also been fairly widely dispersed.
Part of the study's challenge was to assess how much development can shift into the corridors to make the Corridors and Centers vision viable. The good news is that there is much future growth coming down the pike that can be shaped. Jobs are projected to grow about 50% over the next 30 years and population by 55%, preserving the current jobs/housing ratio of over two jobs per household. We next turn to the shaping of this future growth in various scenarios.
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Building Scenarios
Before building scenarios, it was essential to understand the current holding capacity of available lands in the corridors. Therefore, an inventory of land use in the five corridors was undertaken to assess, based on current zoning, how much housing and employment could be accommodated. This provided the baseline for determining how much intervention might be needed to boost densities around stations (Figure 6).
