Grand Forks, ND Zoning Overlays & Bonuses: Downtown Design Guide (2026)

City Code Section 18-0311 creates the downtown design review board to coordinate the design characteristics of downtown structures, preserve and enhance the district's historical character and scale, protect against poor design and inferior quality, encourage good professional design practices, and facilitate new development, defining the downtown district as the B-4 zoning district. The board has seven members: one from the Grand Forks Historical Commission, two public members with a professional background in history, architectural history or architecture nominated by the mayor and confirmed by the city council, three property or business owners within the central business district nominated by the mayor and confirmed by council, and one member of the planning and zoning commission.

Members serve three-year terms and continue until a successor is confirmed, and they elect a chair and vice chair annually; they receive no salary but are reimbursed for actual, reasonable, necessary expenses under city policy. Section 18-0311(6) makes the board responsible for reviewing and deciding items assigned to it for the B-4 district under Section 18-0217A(19). Section 18-0311(7) gives the board authority to adopt guidelines, standards, policies and procedures to carry out its purposes, requiring that any design guidelines comply, at a minimum, with the Secretary of the Interior's Standards for Rehabilitation and Guidelines for Rehabilitation of Historic Buildings, and that amendments adopted after April 16, 2010 go through planning and zoning commission review and city council approval. Board action requires four of the seven members voting in favor, and a denied applicant can appeal to city council under Section 18-0217A(19)(M).