County debates changes to zoning code

By Sam Harvey
Staff Reporter

This first came up for discussion last summer. Cole had argued that the existing C-1 zoning was being used for high-density residential development instead, which would eventually force the county to rezone additional lands as C-1.

He pushed for zero residential in commercial districts, but his colleagues opted for simply taking residential development off the list of permitted uses. Council reached consensus to require that residential projects come in for approval as conditional uses, instead.

However, they left the upper bound undefined — which Cole suggested was entirely inappropriate.

As it stands, developers can build up to 12 residential units per acre on C-1 land, by right. It was at one time permissible to build up to 36 units per acre, so Cole applauded the reduction to 12 as movement in the right direction.

He scoffed at the idea that leaving the proposed CR-1 district open to projects with densities higher than 12 units an acre would alleviate sprawl elsewhere.

“You end up with urban sprawl at high density,” Cole said. “I think people would rather have urban sprawl at low density.”

But Council Member Finley Jones said there was an upper bound, whether or not council specified it with a number. Any development would be limited by available sewer capacity, he said, so the county engineering department would effectively dictate the maximum density.

Cole said it was council’s job, not the engineering department’s job, to legislate land use.

Phillips eventually suggested they set the upper limit at 20 units per acre, at least for the purpose of further discussion at public hearing, and garnered a majority opinion.

On a side note, Cole suggested council should continue to require conditional-use approvals for outdoor amusements, in the old C-1 zone.

County Planner Rick Kautz had placed amusements back on the list of permitted uses — he said council only moved them out of that category to put the brakes on bungee-jumping (this was back in the early 1990s).

Council decided indoor amusements would be appropriate as permitted uses, but agreed with Cole on the outdoor amusements. The ordinance should reappear for introduction in short order.

Council also revisited a suggested amendment to the Cluster Development Ordinance. This was originally intended to give developers some extra options in subdivision design options, trading reduced lot sizes for a guarantee of at least 30 percent open space.

However, builders quickly learned how to use the clustering option to fit additional residential units onto a parcel. Council members freely admitted this was an unintended consequence — they’d originally intended clustering to be density-neutral.

From the outset, Cole has voiced concerns that clustering makes the county’s rural areas more attractive to developers. He recommended the county confine cluster subdivisions to the county’s development districts.

However, Council Member Dale Dukes came back over the top with a different corrective measure, recommending a 25-percent reduction to total acreage, before calculating gross density on the parcel, instead.

The county has enacted a moratorium on all new cluster subdivisions until they come up with one fix or another, and Dukes expressed frustration over the county Planning and Zoning (P&Z) Commission’s deferral on Jan. 12.

County deferred likewise, waiting for P&Z’s recommendation. However, at Dukes’ prompting, they reached consensus to lift the moratorium at the Jan. 31 council meeting, whether or not the P&Z had ruled.