Fairfax County zoning officials have extended the deadline to take an online survey to provide feedback on its zoning modernization project. The survey is now available until Feb. 14, 2018.

It was previously set to close on Jan. 31, but officials wanted to offer more time for public input.

Dubbed “zMod,” the modernization project will revamp the county’s zoning laws that were first adopted in their current form in 1977. In part, the effort focuses on making the overall ordinance easier to use and establishing new, more general zoning use categories.

To make it more user friendly, the county is looking at incorporating more charts, graphs and illustrations into the ordinance, reducing redundancies in the text and using language that’s easily understandable.

New zoning categories will be proposed to combine uses of similar impact into broad categories for consistency and ease of understanding and implementation. This shift will permit for greater agility, so the county won’t need to make zoning updates to accommodate specific new uses.

The county has hired Clarion Associates, a nationally recognized planning and land-use firm, to lead these two major components of zMOD.

The county held its first meeting community on this effort on Jan. 24, 2018. View Clarion’s presentation, or watch the video of this meeting.