home

How dense can we be… and still be Oriental?

That question comes up more and more in discussions about the rapid rise in condo development in town.

One answer is… we ought to be a lot less dense.

The town’s relatively lax rules on density are having a consequence.

Condos and town homes account for most of the new growth being built and/or proposed in Oriental in the past year. Check out the numbers in this quick inventory:

10 town homes completed near the churches. 27 condos nearly completed at the end of Midyette St near the Wildlife Ramp 16 units being changed to condos at what used to be the River Neuse Motel The proposed 12 condos at Whittaker Creek Marina The proposed 12 town homes at Picadilly Square off Midyette, behind the Post Office The 144-condo project, just recently approved at White Farm Rd The recently approved 4 units on North Street

That’s 225 units.

In a year.

In a town as small as we are (875 people) those new units represent a big change.

Some downplay this by saying that, ‘Change is going to happen and you’ll just get used to it.’

But this condo-ization is unlike other changes in recent decades in Oriental that were relatively incremental. This wave is hitting so fast and hard that it is causing a back-lash: there’s a rising realization that the town’s density regulations allow too many town homes and condos. Some worry that the town could become more “Myrtle Beach” and less Oriental, and that the Old Village in particular could lose its character if too many of the condos are built there.

At a recent Planning Board meeting, board member Bob Miller said Oriental was “beginning to see neighborhoods overwhelmed” by multi-unit housing.

“If you look at the last couple of hearings…the real issue has been, ‘What percentage of the housing stock should be multi-family and what percentage should be single-family?’”

Miller proposes a change in the town’s density. It’s on the agenda for this Tuesday’s meeting. More on that in a moment.

But first.. how did we get to this point?

The Current Rules Say They Can Pack Them In. So They Do.

Developers are building condos here.. because they can.

To build a single family home in Oriental, our Growth Managment Ordinance says that you need a minimum of 5,000 square feet in the R2 lots. That works out to 8.5 homes per acre. In the R1 lots in the newer parts of town such as Whittaker Creek and White Farm Road and Neuse Drive and Ragan Road, you need 10,000 square feet which gives you 4.5 homes per acre.

By comparison, under the current rules on multi-unit housing laid out in the GMO you need 5,000 square feet of land to build the first unit, and 3,000 for each additional unit. That’s the minimum lot size on the lots that are zoned R2, R3, MU (Mixed Use — i.e. commercial and or residential) and MU1.

Calculating for the 43,560 square feet in an acre, Oriental’s 5,000/3,000 formula allows up to almost 14 units per acre. In the R2 lots the calculations work out to 10.5 per acre because each lot may have no more than 2 units, meaning 8,000 square feet for every 2 units.

Town Manager Wyatt Cutler says that the two unit per lot maximum in the R2 neighborhoods — which are mainly in the Old Village — was added to the GMO 18 months ago. This may explain why, since that time, almost all of the multi-unit/condo proposals and projects have been in other zoning areas — MU, MU1 and R3 — where 14 per acre can occur.

Just as water seeks the lowest point, developers go — and will continue to go — where they can cram the most units on an acre. Within Oriental, those are the places where they can put 14 units as opposed to 10.5.

This is of concern in the Old Village because while much of it is R2, there are large parts of the Old Village — Midyette Street, Broad Street, Hodges Street and many of the lots on their sidestreets — that are MU1.

There’s an external force at play here too.

Earlier this year the Pamlico County Board of Commissioners reworked its regulations so that in order to build a multi-unit in the county (outside a town’s limits) you would need at least a quarter of an acre — approximately 10,000 square feet. Per unit. That’s about 4 unit per acre.

And on waterfront lots? The county land ordinance on multi-units says you need an acre per unit.

This marks a departure. Usually it is the cities and towns that have the more restrictive ordinances and the counties that are more lax. The role reversal here in Pamlico County is striking. It’s one that developers are likely to take notice of. They will be flocking to the towns with the more lax rules, like Oriental, to build their condos.

So, What’s A Town Like Oriental To Do?

Some members of the Planning Board say: stop allowing such dense development.

At that August 15 Planning Board meeting, Board member Bob Miller raised the issue of what so many condos might do to town.

Many of the condos built here are used either as weekend or vacation retreats by their owners or rented out for similar use, and Miller asked if Oriental should be primarily “a bedroom community for vacationers,” or a place made up more of people who live here year-round.

Oriental has long been a place that welcomes visitors on weekends and vacation. Many of us who live here now, visited for years. But the issue with condo-ization is what it does to that balance of live-heres and visit-heres.

There was some discussion at the Planning Board meeting about the merits of part-time use of the condos.

Some argue that condos used part time don’t drain services as those used full time might, even though they contribute the same amount in property tax. Planning Board member Paul Olsen spoke in that vein of the recently approved Pierce Creek Landing project of 144 condos on White Farm Road. They would bring in the tax money he said, but “not impact the style of life in the Village,” which is several miles away.

From the audience, Pat Herlands, (wife of Town Board member Al Herlands) noted that she lived on White Farm Road and concurred that it — and the proposed condos — were “out there”. However, she spoke of concerns about condos in the heart of Oriental. “If you start sticking those things on every piece of property downtown,” Pat Herlands said, “you will dramatically change the character of town.”

Bob Miller suggested that the Planning Board could, “guide some of that.”

Vice Chairman Dee Sage asked if that were the job of the Planning Board.

Bob Miller quickly responded, “I think it is the job of the planning board to look at the mix of housing.”

Miller said that the town could determine what percentage of new housing was single family and what was multi-unit. “We can do that,” he said. “Other communities have done that.”

Fellow Planning Board member Katy Pugh noted that she didn’t oppose condos per se; she lives (full time) in one of the Old School House condos. But she raised concerns about the number of multi-unit dwellings built or planned for the Midyette Street area. She put the number at 43. (The 27 at the Wildlife Ramp, Sylvan Friedman’s dozen at Picadilly Square, Allan Propst’s North Street project)

Two Planning Board Members Call For Reducing Density

Both Miller and Pugh have come up with proposals to reduce density and plan to present them at the Planning Board meeting this coming Tuesday August 29.

Bob Miller’s plan would make a very big change in how much land one would need to build a ‘multi-unit’. Instead of the 5,000/3,000 formula as is the ordinance now in the R2, R3, MU and MU1, Miller would require different square footage minimums depending on the zone. For instance, in R2 he would require 9,000 for the first unit and 8,000 for the second.

Bob Miller’s Plan:

R-2 9,000 for 1 unit; 8,000 for each additional unit*
R-3 8,000 for 1 unit; 7,000 for each additional unit*
MU 6,000 for 1 unit; 5,000 for each additional unit*
MU-1 6,000 for 1 unit; 5,000 for each additional unit*

This would allow, Miller says, five units per acre in the R2, 6 units per acre in the R3 and 8 in the MU and MU1. It would be, in some lots, almost as restrictive as the county’s regs.

Miller’s plan would mean that more square footage is needed for the multi-units than is currently required for a single family home.

He says that he did that because he thought that, “multi-family housing ought to have open space and not just parking lots and driveways.”

Miller says he also had concerns that with the current standards, some of the “not very big lots in the old part of town” could be developed with large buildings of multi-unit housing that would dominate the lots.

Bob Miller further proposes that when more than one acre is being developed, only the square footage that is buildable could be counted toward the minimum lot size. In other words, wetlands and marshes on the property would not count.

Katy Pugh meanwhile, is proposing a change to the GMO that addresses lot sizes in the MU and MU1 areas. She proposes changing the language in Section 186 so that the part that read, “No more than 60% of the area of any lot located in the MU or MU-1 District shall be covered with surfaces impervious to water.” be changed so that no more than 50% was covered.

She also proposes another tweaking, in which the current working,
4) No building or combination of buildings located in the MU or MU-1 District shall cover more than forty percent (40%) of the area on which it is located. would be changed so that no more than 35% were covered.

That, Katy Pugh says, would “at least help with runoff on all the MU and MU-1 property that is waterfront property — and anywhere else in town.

It’s heartening to see and hear at least two planning board members trying to address the issue that is on many minds now.

For one, reducing allowable density would take care of what many see as an aesthetic issue: defending our Old Village streetscapes against the cookie-cutter condo look.

Lower density would provide pragmatic payoffs, too. Reduced density could mean less runoff, fewer drainage problems than you would have otherwise. It could also forstall greater parking challenges.

Another Approach

The proposals by the planning commissioners are well-intentioned, but one worries that one of the plans, tinkering with a few percentage points of impervious surface space — may not go far enough, and would not address the R3 neighborhoods of upper Midyette Street and along White Farm Road. Meanwhile, Bob Miller’s plan may represent such a rethinking of the way we look at condos, that it could take a while to ‘sell’. One would like to be pleasantly surprised if that did pass.

But in case it doesn’t, there is another approach — a possible fall-back position — that the town might take to reduce density. It is inspired by something that a previous Planning Board once recommended.

Here it is:

1. In the R2, R3, MU and MU1 districts, increase the minimum lot size for multi-units from 5,000 square feet for the first unit and 3,000 square feet for the subsequent units to 5,000 square feet for the first and 4,000 square feet for the subsequent units.

2. In the R2, R3, MU and MU1 districts limit multi-unit residences to no more than two units per lot.

The 5,000/4,000 square foot formula taken by itself would mean 10 units per acre. Combined with the 2-units-per-lot maximum (9,000 square feet for every two units) it would mean 9 per acre. The 2-units-per-lot maximum combined with the current 5,000/3,000 formula (8,000 for two units) would mean almost 11 per acre. Any one of these would be a great improvement over what we have now.

This would not eliminate multi-unit housing. Developers would just need more land on which to do it.

Some of this may have a familiar ring to it.

In the Spring of 2005, the Planning Board (with 4 different members — Alice Debaun, Frank Swain, Warren Johnson and Grace Evans, as well as Dee Sage) worked for a few months with a professional planner and then recommended that the Town Board change to the 5,000/4,000 formula and the 2-units-per-lot rule in the R2 parts of town. The Town Board approved only the part about no more than two units per lot, meaning no more than about 10.5 per acre.

A curious thing has happened since then. Developers have virtually ignored the R2 area of Oriental’s Old Village for multi-unit projects. They’ve instead sought to put condos in the non-R2 lots where they can still shoe-horn in 14 per acre.

Coincidence? Or cause and effect?

There are lessons to be gleaned from this. For one, the Planning Board and Town Board CAN guide growth in response to public wishes of how the town grows. They can, as Bob Miller says, guide the mix of housing.

It’s what happened a year and a half ago: public outcry rose up over the first multi-unit project in the R2 neigbhorhood — the ten townhomes across from the churches. The Planning Board was given the task of working with a professional planner on how to address those concerns.

The result was the Planning Board recommendation for scaling back the density of condo projects in the R2 ‘hood. Some of us at that time asked that the same apply in the nearby MU1 lots of the Old Village, but were rebuffed.

Today, we see the results.

About 200 other condo/townhome projects either proposed or being built in MU1 or R3 neighborhoods.

Do we want to see that many again next year? And the year after that?

It’s of especial concern when you consider that parts of the Old Village closest to the water — the harborfront area — are MU1 and can currently cram 14 units per acre there. Is that the impression we want our town to present? A block of Myrtle Beach condos?

It could happen…. unless we get smart right now and scale back the density of condo units that can be built in Oriental. Cut it back severely as Bob Miller’s plan would do, or cut it back all over town along the lines of the previous Planning Board’s recommendation. But cut density we must.

The town needs to act without undue delay.

Bob Miller says he hopes the Planning Board will take action at Tuesday’s meeting and send it to the Town Board (which would then decide whether to proceed with a public hearing.)

Let’s hope that happens. This can’t wait for the finally-soon-to-be Long Range Planning Committee to get to work, nor for the Planning Board’s efforts on creating Overlay Districts. Time is of the essence.

At Tuesday night’s Planning Board meeting, the density issue is Item 4 on the agenda. The Planning Board meeting starts at 7 at Town Hall. The meetings are open to the Public and the public has traditionally been given opportunity to speak.

Posted Monday August 28, 2006 by Melinda Penkava

email this story | back to top