Emotions runs high in Fenwick on FAR

Carmean, attendees call for referendum

By M. Patricia Titus
Staff Reporter

If those expressing their opinion on proposed floor-area ratio (FAR) controls on home size in Fenwick Island were nearly equally divided at the initial April hearing on the issue, the same could not be said of those attending the second hearing on FAR, May 6.

With applause and vocal expressions of support, the bulk of those in the capacity crowd at Fenwick Island town hall made it clear they were opposed to the proposed ordinance — as drafted, and for many, in principle as well.

Emotions and rhetoric ran high as they talked about property rights, possible reductions in property value, the dreams and visions of property owners past, present and future, and even the virtues and failings of representative democracy and looming danger of governmental controls a la the Cold War Soviet Union.

Proponents of the ordinance were clearly in the minority from the first speaker on, as the first few opposition remarks netted widespread applause. Resident Carolyn Hood took the opportunity to request that Mayor Peter Frederick ask applause to be held, saying, “This is a hearing, not a rally.”

Frederick did so, mildly, but both requests were ignored by the bulk of those present, who continued to applaud in support of anti-FAR statements. After an additional request to hold the applause was ignored, Frederick subsided, acknowledging that he could not force the public to be silent on an issue where the council had asked for input.

The biggest fly in the ointment at the hearing, however, was the question of how well the town’s citizens had been informed on the issue.

Criticism leapt to point to a January joint meeting of the council and the town’s ordinance committee, at which the final form of the ordinance was drafted, with public input permitted. Winter action in the area’s beach towns often draws criticism over how many of property owners are out of town and, often, out of touch. And this time was no different.

Further criticism was leveled at the two public hearings. While that’s one more than technically required before a council vote, some expressed concern that they were scheduled in April and May, rather than in May and through the summer or early fall, when the most property owners might be able to attend.

And, complicating matters, some at the hearing said they’d received no official communication from the town on the issue. Some had learned of the May hearing from a mailing sent out recently by a group of concerned residents. Others had spotted notices in local newspapers. But some reported they’d never received a letter from the council and copy of the ordinance that was sent to all property owners of record in March.

The reason may be simple enough to explain in most cases. With 911 readdressing in Sussex County, some residents have gotten new addresses recently. But the town relies on county tax roles and their addresses to send out its mailings, and any property owner whose address has changed but who hasn’t updated their address with the county may not be receiving mail from the town.

But, notably, some of those who said they’d received no mail from the town said they had received it from that group of concerned residents — a group that paid the town for a set of the very same mailing labels the town used in March.

Additionally, town employees reported only a handful of returned mailings from what the town sent, while Council Member Audrey Serio said she’d recently used the same labels and had gotten in excess of 30 returned mailings.

Whether some property owners managed to overlook their mailings or whether they were lost in the postal system, or had some other fate befall them, the errant communication was troubling — both to those left out of the loop and to ordinance committee chairman Harry Haon, who promised to look into the issue.

Further yet, some at the hearing noted that, as joint owners of property, they weren’t even directly on the town’s mailing list — mailings go to a single registered address for all property owners, as a rule. Those owners were reliant on their co-owners to pass along such information, they said.

So, despite the apparent efforts of the town to keep property owners informed on an important ordinance some nine months in the making, it seems that effort may have failed. It certainly did in some respects.

But, once informed, those who turned out May 6 were virtually united in their opposition to FAR, most commonly citing the potential negative impact to their property values. Largely, it was a rehashing of the reasons provided for opposition in April.

Resident Tim Collins again noted some 10 percent of properties outside the statistics provided by the town, some — including his own — double lots that would be capped at 5,500 square feet of living space unless the FAR ordinance is modified or rejected outright.

Collins said he didn’t opposed FAR in principal, but felt the ordinance hadn’t been researched and written carefully enough before going to a first reading and the subsequent public hearings. He said he also felt the prefacing letter from the town had been skewed to support FAR, with a long list of communities using such restrictions but no accounting of those that rejected them.

Collins further questioned the town’s standard ordinance process that doesn’t officially open the record for mass public input via public hearing until after a first reading.

Notably, Serio and Councilwoman Martha Keller both said they couldn’t recall how or when the numerical limits of FAR were drafted into the ordinance, despite both being members of the ordinance committee. Keller had since drafted a modified proposal without a hard cap on allowed living space.

Haon noted that both Serio and Keller had been absent from at least one such meeting — out of town, he said, garnering an “ooh” of sudden comprehension from the gathered opponents, who latched onto that as support for the notion that a minority opinion and resulting ordinance had been drafted while potential oversight had been skipped with a wintertime drafting timetable.

Beyond the process issues, others expressed that they were satisfied with the building controls that already exist in the town, most notably the standard setbacks on lots. But others expressed consternation with even the existing rules, including height limitations and the more recent limits on the numbers of bedrooms and bathrooms in a home.

Collins said that was another case in which the council had drafted a blanket measure, presented it in a prefacing letter as good for the town and encouraged it to pass without property owners really giving much thought to the consequences.

And, citing insurance and flooding safety, property owners also returned to that old saw of height limits — some 30 feet in the town — which can be especially limiting when homes must be raised on pilings to avoid risking flood damage. The addition of FAR on top of height, setback and bedroom/bath limitations was just too much, some said.

Again, as in the previous hearing, proponents of FAR cited increasing house sizes and the loss of views and green space as detriments to their enjoyment of their properties and their property values. And still others emphasized a need for compromise, the finding of a “happy medium” between the extremes of growth and control that loom over the town.

But it was again a summing up of presented viewpoints that stirred those in attendance at the hearing. As with Frederick’s hearing-closing statement in April that there appeared to be enough support for the ordinance to move forward in the process, Haon’s tally of support and opposition was barely voiced before objection was heard.

There was not a slight margin of those in favor of FAR, the audience insisted, regardless of Haon’s count of letters and speakers. Indeed, the decisive opposition of all but approximately 10 of the 60 or 70 people present at that day’s hearing seemed all alone to reverse any previous trend of support for FAR. That there could be any debate as to the trend outraged some.

The count aside, Haon insisted, very few of the town’s approximately 800 property owners had been heard from on the issue, despite the public hearing and requests for input. He proposed a survey, akin to the one done on proposed docks legislation last year, to garner more input.

But that again rallied opposition from most of those at the hearing, who wondered aloud what good yet more informal input would do when two hearings had already shown significant opposition and council members still told them there was significant support for FAR.

Carmean stepped forward to join the crowd on that count, saying her own count of opposition and support for FAR showed it leaning against the measure, with some supporting it only if changes were made. She said she felt another informal count would not get the overall opinion the council needed.

She called for a referendum, noting it could go on the ballot with the town’s scheduled August council elections. There was vocal support for the notion, which had been mentioned by several of the anti-FAR speakers.

“I’m not very comfortable with making a decision that will impact all of Fenwick Island,” Carmean said. “The people should decide in a referendum.”

Haon noted that more input had been given when townsfolk were asked to comment on proposed allowances for docks and boat lifts last year. He favored another informal poll as a next step, he said.

With the calls for referendum still lingering, Hood again objected to how the process was going. She said the town’s representative-style democracy relied upon council members to make decisions to benefit the town, as voters’ elected representatives.

A referendum, in contrast, was pure democracy, she said, and a situation in which she had often found voters cast their ballots without full information or having been swayed by interest groups. She challenged those calling for a referendum, asking them if they wanted to live in California, where referendums are a regular occurrence.

Few responded to the challenge, but most continued to voice their call for a referendum.

That call would not — and could not — be answered by the council on May 6, however. Council is not permitted to take formal action at a public hearing. Instead, the issue was put on hold for the council’s scheduled May 19 meeting.

At that time, council is technically allowed to hold a second reading of the proposed FAR ordinance, and then to take action upon it. Nothing short of additional restrictions being added to the draft ordinance requires a halt or reversal of the process to earlier stages. And the existing draft or a less-restrictive version could, technically, be voted into effect at that time.

But council would also be able to vote May 19 to set a referendum on FAR. Either way, the direction the council will choose on FAR will be seen that Friday afternoon.