Public hearing set on zoning ordinance revision April 15
The planning commission is
revising the zoning ordinance to make it more “user-friendly” at the direction
of county supervisors, who threatened in January to repeal it altogether. A
public hearing on the revised ordinance is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at
the county courthouse board room. The supervisors will consider whether to
adopt the proposed revised ordinance May 8.
The ordinance will define an
automobile graveyard as “any lot or place which is exposed to the weather upon
which more than five unlicensed and/or inoperable motor vehicles of any kind
are placed.”
“Vehicles” would include motor
vehicles, trailers or semitrailers.
The law would permit an unlimited
number of inoperable vehicles to be stored inside a structure, not visible from
the outside.
Agricultural vehicles would be
exempt, but the landowner would have to prove that the property being used for
storage was being used for agriculture and that the owner was submitting a
“tangible business personal property” tax form to the county commissioner of
the revenue. Agricultural operations “have a lot of farm vehicles,” said Zoning
Administrator Elaine Holeton.
Temporary storage would be allowed
at an automobile or farm vehicle sales and service business.
Commercial auto graveyards would
be allowed in industrial districts and with a special use permit in rural farm
and commercial districts.
Holeton said the intent of the
regulations is to preserve the health, safety and welfare of county residents.
Auto graveyards can attract rodents and are prone to hazardous fluid leaks.
Any property which had more than
five inoperable vehicles before 1998, when zoning was first adopted, is exempt
because existing uses were grandfathered at the time.
“Who enforces these graveyard
things?” asked Commission Member Palmer Fant.
Holeton said that was a good
question. She said the regulations in the present zoning ordinance are hard to
enforce.
Commission Member Brian Walls
asked whether each person who lived on a property could have five inoperable
vehicles, but Holeton answered that only five would be allowed on any lot.
Walls wanted to know whether a
person could have more on a lot of 50 acres, when they couldn’t be seen from
anywhere else.
Commission Chair Lindsey Carico
explained that even with a 1,000-acre lot, an owner could only have five because
of the safety hazard. “It’s fair,” she said.
Fant complained that a clutter of
old farm vehicles creates an “eyesore.”
“An eyesore to some people,” said
Walls. “Some people might love it.”
“Five sounds fair to me,” said
Commission Member Robert Noblett.
Commission Member Larry Bartlett
said he would agree to include the automotive junkyard section but he didn’t
believe it would work. He said he had a long history with a junkyard in his own
neighborhood and it is “still there. This is a very difficult thing that we’re
trying to do.”
Bartlett said he keeps both an old
truck and a tractor for parts. “Am I who we’re after?”
He thought the restrictions would
be “very difficult to manage” and asked that the planning commission reconsider
the issue in the future.
Carico agreed that the commission
needs to spend considerable time on the shoreline recreation and junk car
issues. “This wording does clarify some of the issues of the previous
ordinance.”
Fant asked that the commission
continually bear in mind keeping Grayson beautiful. “It’s our responsibility to
keep it that way or improve it.”
On the shoreline recreation district,
Holeton sketched the history of how the narrow river lots came into being. The
county’s first subdivision ordinance in the 1970s allowed the creation of lots
as narrow as 20 feet in some cases, which were “very marketable.” From the
1970s until 2012, when the planning commission removed shoreline recreation
lots from the subdivision ordinance, between 500 and 1,000 such lots were
created and sold along the New River, Holeton said. “In the past that was used
as a tool by the developer to get a ton of money for a little bit of land.”
Now, developers can only create
Class I or Class II subdivisions or planned unit developments along the river.
The minimum lot size is 30,000 square feet.
The shoreline recreation district
in the zoning ordinance only applies to those previously created shoreline
recreation lots. Holeton said someone with a rural farm property could seek
rezoning to shoreline recreation but this would be unlikely because of the
tight restrictions imposed.
The intent of the restrictions is
to ensure that development on the properties conforms to floodplain
regulations. Holeton pointed out that improperly or illegally built structures
in the floodplain could cause a flood to widen and pose a hazard to those
downstream, and could threaten water quality.
The county must try to balance the
rights of the community, “aesthetic, water quality,” with the rights of the
property owners.
The revised ordinance emphasizes
that the floodplain ordinance governs to a large extent what shoreline
recreation owners can do with their property.
Permitted uses in the shoreline recreation
district include agriculture; camping, provided adequate water and sewer
services are provided; and hunting, fishing and outdoor recreation. Only
non-residential buildings with one wall are permitted, positioned so that flood
waters can travel through the structure. Only one such building may be placed
on any lot. One deck or freestanding porch is permitted per lot. Decks placed
in conjunction with a building must be permanently tied in with and anchored with
the building.
All construction that is in the
FEMA-designated floodplain must meet codes for floodprone construction,
including any electrical, plumbing or septic tank construction.
No yard setback is required and
street setbacks are the same as in the rest of the zoning ordinance.
Holeton said the revision would
not make any “earth-shattering changes” but she would like the commission to
take a hard look at the shoreline recreation situation this summer. Commission
members agreed by consensus to accept this revision as a start.
Holeton said she is not sure what
to do about “all the illegal structures down there.” She said the county is
doing a pretty good job of catching people who try to build new ones. She
called the shoreline recreation district “a huge health, safety and welfare
hazard because most of the property is in the FEMA-designated floodplain.”
Because the county no longer
allows creation of shoreline recreation lots, Commission Member John Brewer,
who also is chairman of the county Board of Supervisors, asked why Grayson
needs a shoreline recreation district in its zoning ordinance.
“So we can regulate what’s already
been done,” Holeton said. “You’ve got a district here that really needs zoning.
“What really needs to happen is we
need these lots to get bigger.” She suggested some kind of incentive for
combining lots.
Carico asked about the illegal
structures, and Holeton said she is not sure how the county will address them.
“Once they go over the Fries dam,
we’re not going to build them back,” Carrico said.
This spring, the county will mail
information on floodplain regulations to all shoreline recreation lot owners as
well as anyone who owns land in a FEMA-designated floodplain. The county also
intends to erect signs in shoreline recreation districts advising people about
restricted development areas.
Holeton said the 1940 flood was 20
feet above the normal water level. “It will flood down there.”
But she warned that “the Board of
Supervisors’ meetings are going to be full” when the county tries to enforce
floodplain regulations.
“You’re looking at a handful of
rich people owning river lots,” said Carico. “Why should the whole community
suffer? Just because they own property on the river shouldn’t give them the
right to put everyone else in jeopardy.”
Holeton said that in addition to
more work on the shoreline recreation district, the commission could look forward
to doing some work on the county floodplain ordinance. The ordinance is
necessary for flood insurance and federal flood relief.
In other issues, the commission:
* agreed to treat horses as
“companion animals” rather than “livestock,” which is in line with how the
building official interprets agricultural regulations.
* agreed that when a homeowner
replaces a manufactured home with a new manufactured home, he will have 30 days
to stabilize the old home on an appropriate setup or must dispose of it in six
months; or reset it properly for residential use or reset it properly for use
as an accessory building with approval by the building inspector for the new
use.
* agreed not to allow new
billboards in the county.
No comments:
Post a Comment