Neighborhood Conservation Overlay Districts

Preservation NC has put together a great resource about Neighborhood Conservation Overlay Districts. I like to refer to this method of neighborhood preservation as 'historic preservation lite.' NCODs tend to focus on a few defining characteristics of an area like setbacks and form and not the specifics like window types and paint colors.  NCODs are also generally administered by local government staff and not an appointed commission.  The picture below is two houses in Apex's Small Town Character Overlay District that were redeveloped using the Town's overlay standards.

http://www.presnc.org/Preservation-Answers/Neighborhood-Conservation-Overlay-District