# Site plan review
Site plan review is the administrative land-development review a county planning department conducts on a proposed development. In Pulaski County it is governed by the Subdivision and Development Code — and, critically for this investigation, it is the **only** county land-use review that applies to a project on unincorporated, un-zoned land. Unlike a rezoning, it involves no elected body, no Quorum Court vote, and — absent a variance request — no public hearing.
## How it appears in the corpus
The AVAIO "Project Leo" data center sits on un-zoned, unincorporated Pulaski County land, so site plan review was the entire county land-use process it faced ([[AVAIO Project Leo Site Plan and County Review]]). The process the corpus documents:
1. **Application and submittal.** The developer files a site plan application and 15 copies of the site plan with Planning & Development; staff check the submittal against a Site Plan Review Criteria checklist.
2. **Staff review.** Planning staff review for setbacks, parking, drainage, water and sewer service, fire protection, floodplain management, and access. The corpus shows two review rounds for Project Leo — an incomplete first checklist (2024-10-11) and a substantially complete second (2024-11-14).
3. **Notice of Site Plan Review.** The department issues a notice recording approval status. Project Leo received **"Conditional approval"** on 2024-12-19, with "Planning Board Approval Meeting Date: N/A" — no board meeting was held.
[[Jim Cranor]] described the limits of the process for un-zoned land: staff "conduct a site plan review before an address is issued," and "No public review would be required unless the application requests a variance" ([[Pulaski County Planning Correspondence on Project Leo]], `email 042426.pdf`).
## Stakeholders
The county Planning & Development Department conducts the review; the developer and its engineer respond to staff comments. For an un-zoned site, no elected body and no member of the public has a formal role unless a variance is sought. A project that instead required a rezoning would face public hearings before both the County Planning Board and the Quorum Court.
## Timeline
- **2024-09-30** — AVAIO files the Project Leo site plan.
- **2024-10-11** — first county review checklist (incomplete).
- **2024-11-14** — second county review checklist.
- **2024-12-19** — Notice of Site Plan Review: conditional approval.
## Notes
The narrowness of site plan review is the procedural reason Pulaski County generated no PILOT, bond, or Quorum Court records for Project Leo: an un-zoned site triggers only this staff process. See [[2026-05 Pulaski County Government FOIA Response]].