Bethany planners kick off new term

The Bethany Beach Planning Commission met on Saturday, Oct. 18, for the first monthly meeting of their 2008-2009 term.

The commission welcomed new member John Gaughan, who was formally appointed to the commission by Mayor Tony McClenny, with the unanimous support of the council, on Oct. 17. Council Member Lew Killmer – whom Gaughan replaces on the commission as a voting member – was selected to continue on the commission as its chairperson, as well as the non-voting commission liaison to the town council.

The commission also voted Oct. 18 for Commissioner Kathleen Mink to continue as its vice-chairwoman. And, while Killmer will continue to serve on the town’s Design Review Committee (DRC) for non-residential structures, it will now be as the council’s representative. Commissioner Faith Denault will be the Planning Commission’s representative on the committee.

After that internal housekeeping was completed, Commissioner Donald Doyle raised the issue of proposed changes to the town’s residential parking requirements, but that was tabled after a lengthy discussion.

Doyle’s original argument for the changes was that Bethany Beach needed to make residential areas “look residential” by customizing their rules. He noted that if police think vehicles are parked in a way that impedes emergency traffic, the vehicles can be ticketed; but there is nothing in the town code that pertains particularly to the details of permitted residential parking – for example, if they can be parked on lawns or other areas of the property not specifically marked as driveways.

Killmer offered that he drove though his Bethany West community and noted 75 would-be violations of the proposed new policy before he stopped counting.

“A huge number of properties would have to be grandfathered in, and it wouldn’t be practical,” said Killmer. “And if we didn’t do that, there would be significant financial hardship for people.”

He also mentioned that. as a “vacation” destination filled with rental properties, the town needs to be more open – something with which Commissioner Fulton Loppatto agreed.

“We have small lots, and I’d rather see people on the grass than on the street. We went over this before, about boats, but we are a beach community and we have to have more flexibility. We are a car community, too, unfortunately, and when you have company, you have to have somewhere to put all the people.”

Doyle pointed out that there seemed to be a “degree of neglect” on the part of the town, with no precise parking regulations in the code, and he said it was something that affected the overall appearance and property values of the town.

Gaughan said they didn’t want to seem as if they were promoting non-permeable surfaces – such as additional paved driveway area – and didn’t want people to just start covering more land with parking areas.

“You get frustrated, but it’s a transient issue,” he said.

Killmer noted that there currently is a width limit of driveways at 20 feet.

Commissioners also discussed going to the Charter and Ordinance Review Committee with notions such as simply stating there is to be no parking on established lawns.

In other business for their new term, Mink brought up the possibility of sending out a new survey to residents on issues throughout the town, since the last one is a few years old. “The world has changed at least twice since then,” she said.

The commission discussed broadening their survey base to include business owners and other stakeholders, such as visitors from other nearby towns. They discussed the types of questions and the format of the survey that would best allow them to receive information on planning and where they want to be in the future as a town.

“I’d like to stay away from questions like, ‘Do you think the dune is too high?’ joked Mink in a wry note. She instead offered that they want to be able to use the survey to help them in their five-year vision for the town.

“We want it to be useable and doable,” she said. She added that she would like to have areas the commission would like pursued on a list by January.

The commission also discussed the creation of a new ordinance for the regulation of flags and flagpoles. Killmer stated that the council had asked them to come up with a draft ordinance. The commission came up with two: (1) “the short answer,” which dealt only with the issue of flags and flagpoles, and (2) “the long, full-blown ordinance,” which dealt with issues like the differences between businesses and residences, flag size, height, etc.

Killmer suggested that they send them both to council for the council to decide which to pursue. He also offered that, after checking, he found that most area towns do not regulate flags.

Gaughan asked what the basis was for the 15-square-foot limit on flag size in the larger ordinance, and Killmer said it fits the current town regulation regarding flags and flagpoles. Gaughan said he wasn’t sure they had a need “for that type of particularity.”

Mink suggested they just send it to council as is, but Doyle said that, as the planning commission, he thought it was their job to hash it out before they sent it to council.

Gaughan offered a motion to take out two items from the longer ordinance that dealt with regulations that would be redundant, and the commission passed the motion unanimously. They then voted to send both the short version and the amended long version to council, to let them decide if either would be adopted.

The commission also spent a great deal of energy on Oct. 18 discussing possible regulations regarding geo-thermal heating and cooling systems.

“They are becoming more and more popular, and there are no regulations,” offered Loppatto.

The original discussion of the need for regulations of the systems came about because of a malfunction in an open system that ended up leaking water into a homeowner’s crawlspace, which was then being sump-pumped out to a nearby swale. Some geo-thermal systems use ethylene glycol as an anti-freeze in the system, making leaks a potential hazard to local waterways and aquifers.

Loppatto had prepared draft regulations by pulling regulations from other towns and areas, but he noted that the two main things the commission is looking to regulate are the type of system and the fluids used.

“The fluids used can be toxic and could quite possibly contaminate other areas,” said Killmer. “The regulations would not only be to protect the person installing it and our water system but the neighbors.”

The commissioners said they would be interested in only allowing closed systems, which would be less likely to leak.

They also talked about sharing their finished draft document with local contractors to see if it was feasible to implement and whether contractors could work with it – something Building Inspector John Eckridge agreed was a good idea.

Commissioners also discussed not making the proposed regulations too specific to present-day installation processes because of ever-changing technologies. But they did agree that there should be some type of regulations concerning location, design and permitting, as well as the type of system and the type of cooling fluid used.

The work on potential regulations for geo-thermal systems is the first of several planned sets of regulations related to “green” technologies in the town, to eventually include solar power, wind power and others.