home

Often in our town the citizens don’t rally around a development issue until a very visible example of bad development is staring them in the face. Or soaring over their heads.

Two summers ago when the previous Town Board raised the height limit for misleading reasons (to bring, they said, existing buildings out of the flood level) I predicted that we would see a number of developers taking advantage of that, throwing up brand new buildings that reached to the upper parts of the new 48-1/2 foot height limit. An email from one town commissioner at that time accused me of being “Chicken Little”. If I recall, her mocking refrain went something like, “The tall buildings are coming, the tall buildings are coming.”

Fast forward about half a year. The tall buildings came. You know which ones I’m talking about. We live with them today, looming too large over the nearby streets. Happily, the new Town Board stemmed that tide, pulling back the height limit this winter. Those too-tall buildings are now just a reminder of a mistake our town made. At least we’re not threatened with more of them.

Now however, our Town Board has before it another proposal to loosen the town’s building guidelines. This one is more insidious than the height limit going up two years ago. This Planned Unit Development proposal would loosen the limits not just on height but on setbacks and lot size as well. It’s a slick scheme to get around the town’s existing moderate building ordinances. And it will chip away at the human scale of our town.

You may have seen the earlier articles written here about the proposed changes to the Planned Unit Development ordinance. I won’t go over it here – you can read that information in earlier posts in this column.

But I will ask you to do what you can.

Please let’s not have a repeat of the Too-Tall Buildings saga. We’ve seen what happens in our town when we loosen regulations. Don’t stand on the sidelines and wait for the first PUD debacle to happen and then say, “How could this be?” It’s clear right now that it’s not good for town.

Contact your commissioners and make clear that you want them to nip this PUD in the bud.

And tell them that you want them to do it at the July 11th public hearing. Perhaps because of the outcry in town and mounting opposition to their plan, the Planning Board the other day made noises about extending the discussion about the PUD to after the Town Board’s public hearing. The delaying tactic is obvious. They’ve had more than adequate say before the Town Board.

Now it’s your turn.

Remember, thoughtless policy gets made when thoughful people do nothing. Attend the Public Hearing and speak out. And almost more importantly, before the Public Hearing, contact your commissioners and tell them what you think. (Perhaps the following four points will be of assistance to help you make the case against this PUD proposal. Contact information for your commissioners follows.)

1. The proposal is based on a flawed concept: the misguided view that we need ‘flexibility’. We already have flexibility worked in to our system. – Height flexibility — The height limit is 43-1/2 feet but a builder can go to 48-1/2 feet in exchange for greater setbacks – Our town already has a Board of Adjustment which handles variance requests from builders who seek generally slight exceptions to the Growth Management Ordinance. Since we have an existing Board of Adjustment, this PUD is just re-inventing the wheel. And the PUD wheel is a wobbly one at best. – In any event, our GMO rules are not onerous. Look around and you’ll see that some developers are working within the rules and building things that are to the scale of our town and the Old Village. What’s fair for one is fair for all.

2. Special Treatment. This PUD proposal as presented seems written with a few developers clearly in mind. At the Thursday meeting, the proponent of this PUD, Planning Board Vice Chair Dee Sage, mentioned 3 specific lots and referenced a fourth. For commissioners, that should set off a queasy feeling. Do they really want to be known for passing the “Put Three Homes On A Lot Only Big Enough For Two Loophole”? Or the “Allow More Condos On His Lot And Never Mind The Parking Spaces Loophole”? Or the “Let the Mayor’s Two Acres of Harborfront Property Live By Different Rules Rule”? Do they really want that on their resumes?

Everyone should live by the rules. If the lot really has only enough space for two homes, don’t look to build three. If you need adequate parking, and it means having one less condo unit, then build one less condo unit. If these developers want to build a gazebo for town or give the town a small parcel of land for a picnic table or allow a harborfront walkway those developers can do so already. They can do so out of a desire to give something back to our community… or more practically speaking, out of a desire to get a tax break by way of contributing that land. Just don’t put the town board in the position of cutting deals so these developers can evade the GMO rules and build more densely packed — or higher — structures. It just isn’t right. It erodes public confidence that you are doing the right thing for our town.

3. We have a sad track record of what happens when Oriental loosens its GMO. The last time the Town Board loosened the ordinances was the summer of 2004 when it wrongly raised the height limit. Look at what we got. Within just over half a year, some builders took advantage of it and built things that were not to scale in the Old Village part of town. We live with them now. Let’s not repeat that mistake. Stick with the rules we have. If anything, in the face of the county making it harder to build multi-units, Oriental should be thinking of taking that route too. We should not be going in the opposite direction of giving away the store.

Finally:

4. Town Board should nip this PUD in the bud at the July 11th meeting. No waiting till a later meeting when fewer people are there. Do it now.

There was some talk at the Thursday July 6 meeting that the Town Board might not vote on this on July 11th in order to get more input from the Planning Board. That would be a mistake. The choice is so clear right now. The Planning Board is on the wrong track on this issue and the Town Board should not be led down the path by the argument that ‘flexibility’ will help or that this needs ‘more study’. It’s so obvious what’s going on here and what needs to be done. Kill the proposal that would let these PUD’s happen in the Old Village. We have all the flexibility we need. What we need now is to encourage developers who, like so many of us, appreciate the scale of this Old Village and build in accordance with the very simple ordinances we have on height, setback, lot size and parking. Those are our best defense against growth that overwhelms the scale of town.

Bottom line to your town commissioners: Put this issue up for a vote and vote against it July 11th. Nip this PUD in the bud on July 11th.

Warren Johnson
5633 Styron Drive
PO Box 724
Oriental, NC 28571
252 249 1667 – Home
252 249 3187 – Fax
252 675 2362 – Cell
kwjohnson@pamlico.net

Candy Bohmert
311 Midyette Street
P O Box 562
Oriental, NC 28571
252 745 5781 – Fax (Work)
252 675 1411 – Cell
candy@pinelink.org

Alan Herlands
2115 White Farm Road
P O Box 466
Oriental NC 28571
252 249 0856 – Home
252 670 4203 – Cell
alherlands@pinelink.org

Nancy Inger
1107 Neuse Drive
Oriental, NC 28571
252 249 7291 – Home
252 249 7291 – Fax
252 671 3012 – Cell
nancying@earthlink.net

Barbara Venturi
1406 Tosto Circle
Oriental NC 28571
252 249 1141 – Home
venturi@coastalnet.com

Posted Sunday July 9, 2006 by Melinda Penkava

email this story | back to top