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A proposal before the Town Board Tuesday night would set up Conditional Zoning in Oriental.

Basically, it says that if a developer wants to build something in one zoning district which the current standards and rules don’t allow there, he can go to the Town Board and seek “Conditional Zoning”. And the Town Board can allow him to build things — or build in a way – that the zoning district would not now allow.

This would throw too much subjectivity it in to the process, and in so doing, undermine public confidence that all parties are being treated equally and fairly. What’s more, it will lead to great uncertainty about how land can be used in town.

At the moment, we have on the books some regulations and guidelines that spell out the dimensions of buildings, the setbacks, the uses that are allowed in some zones and not others.

These are rules that everyone can read and refer to.

For instance, if you live in one of the residential zones — say the R2 of the Old Village — you know that you cannot build a big condo complex. Neither could your neighbors, because nothing bigger than a duplex is allowed there. Nor could you — or your neighbors — set up a storage facility or a retail store. These are just not allowed in the R2. At least for now.

But under the Conditional Zoning proposal as written, a Town Board could make that much murkier. And it wouldn’t even be as formal a process — quasi-judicial — that we have now for Special Use Permits.

Now, it’s possible that Oriental’s Town Board will always use its subjectivity wisely. But subjectivity being what it is, there’s also the chance that the Town Board could err in departing from the rules and regs now on the books. And once the Town Board grants that exception to one developer, how likely are Town Board members to turn down the next one who seeks it, and the one after that, and the one after that?

George Smith, who pressed for stricter standards when he served on the Stakeholders Advisory Group a year and a half ago, sees another problem. The Conditional Zoning proposal is ambiguous, he says and that could play in to the hands of developers who would threaten lawsuits if the Conditional Zoning is not granted to them.

Instead of encouraging a developer to follow our town’s rules, this would instead encourage a developer to find a way around them.

Think you live in a residential neighborhood with defined rules of what can be built next to your home? Maybe not under this proposal.

The Planning Board came up with this proposal in response to the possible annexation of St. Peter’s The Fisherman Catholic Church. The church property on White Farm Road sits in a largely residential and rural area. The church said it needed to be zoned for Mixed Use (residential and commercial) in order to build an assisted living facility one day. Thing is, if the church decided to sell that property in the future, the next owner could use that MU zoning to put in an array of businesses that would not be in keeping with the residential neighborhood. So, what should a town do if it wants to annex the church property?

The Planning Board’s answer to this conundrum on White Farm Road is Conditional Zoning that would apply town wide. It’s an unfortunate move. Instead of dealing with the localized issue on White Farm Road, this proposal would reach to every lot in every corner of Oriental and make a mockery of our existing zoning.

Residents get their chance to comment on the proposal at tonight’s Town Board Public Hearing.

You can read the proposal by clicking here.

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Update: Here is the proposal that is the subject of the July 1 public hearing. It has been slightly reworked from the original proposal.

Posted Tuesday May 6, 2008 by Melinda Penkava

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