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At the Town Board’s meeting Monday night Oct 23, the commissioners continued the Public Hearing from October 3 about reducing density in Oriental’s R2, R3, MU and MU1 neighborhoods in order to avoid the over-condoization of other coastal towns.

The board had said earlier it wasn’t going to vote at this meeting on any of the half-dozen or so proposals before them. It was to be a public hearing only, in the run-up to the November 7 board meeting at which the board may vote on something.

Commissioner Nancy Inger spoke of the need for the board to change some aspect of the density regulations at that meeting on the 7th. Delaying action, she suggested, would leave the town open to more of the condos under the current density rules which many here think are too lenient.

Some in the audience said the delay in taking action had gone on for too long. Others, with interests in the real-estate business and development, spoke of not wanting the board to make changes.

Yet while the board took no action on, nor talked in any depth about the merits of particular plans to change the density, the board did take what could be a big step sideways, if not backwards. The board voted for one local developer’s proposal that could give the footdragging a foothold.

Introducing: The Stakeholder

The proposal came from local real estate developer and Mariner Realty company owner Allen Propst. Mr. Propst appealed to commissioners to not take any action but instead to send it to a new committee because, he said, the Town Board “elected to represent us doesn’t represent all of the ‘stakeholders’”

Mr. Propst said that the changes being proposed were ‘major’ and were being done “without taking in all of the considerations of all of the people in town, and when I say all of the people,” Mr. Propst said, he meant “not just the people who live in the R1 or live in the R2 or outside the city limits. I’m talking about land owners here in town that have investments in all their properties. They’re stakeholders.”

Mr. Propst proposed a “Stakeholders Committee” that would work with the Planning Board on reviewing the proposed changes to the GMO. This would be a group of eleven: six appointees tapped by the mayor and the Town Board, along with the five planning board members.

That idea appeared to have the support of those in the audience with real estate development ties who have turned out for the two public hearings and claimed, along with the mayor, that any change in the GMO would ‘hurt property values’.

Championing the developers’ point of view was Commissioner Candy Bohmert who Monday night said that she didn’t feel “qualified” to make changes to the standards because she didn’t know how to build houses. She touted a group of “Stakeholders” as being able to and pushed for the Stakeholder Committee.

And who, someone in the audience asked, might stakeholders be?

Commissioner Bohmert acknowledged some faces in the room as she named people she viewed as “huge stakeholders”:

- Mayor Sherrill Styron. (the mayor is not in the business of building homes but does own a seafood plant on 2 acres on the Oriental harbor that could one day be developed.) – Chris Fulcher.(who, like the mayor, owns a seafood company and sizeable acreage on the harbor and riverfront that could one day be developed) – A third name that Commissioner Bohmert suggested was Henry Frazer (Mr. Frazer is a local real estate developer who ran for the Town Board last year.)

While other commissioners appeared to one extent or another to want to make changes to the GMO on the issue of density, enough went along with Bohmert’s concerted push for the Stakeholders Committee for it to be in the works now.

(Voting in favor: Candy Bohmert, Barb Venturi, Nancy Inger. Al Herlands demurred from voting, which counts as an affirmative. Warren Johnson opposed.)

The Stakeholder Committee concept is to be further discussed — and criteria and parameters set — at a Town Board meeting Friday at 9:30am meeting. At that meeting the Board may also discuss the merits and winnow some of the proposals on density.

The vote to set up a Stakeholders Committe may have come as a surprise to some in the audience Monday night. For one, no votes were to be taken Monday night according to the board’s comments at its October 3 meeting.

And given the board’s recent approach of ‘needing more time’ to weigh things, the quick decision to act on the developer’s proposal for a Stakeholders Committee begged a lot of questions. Some of those questions might have been asked at the meeting, but the Mayor moved to end the public hearing and the board complied.

Unable to ask them Monday night, I lay them out here.

These questions are serious ones about how our little town and its town board deal with developoment issues. One would hope they’d be addressed before Friday and before the Board makes any further movement on a “stakeholders committee”:

Who?
1. What does ‘stakeholder’ mean exactly? One town official notes that stakeholder is a buzzword. It was suggested the other night that it might mean someone with an ‘interest’ in town. By that definition isn’t every resident/voter in Oriental already a stakeholder? Aren’t these the “stakeholders” the board should be concerned with? But even if your definition of “stakeholder’ includes those who own property in town but don’t live in town, don’t they already have the ability, in Oriental’s usually ‘open-mike night’ approach to meetings, to speak at public hearings and to contact commissioners? Haven’t they done so of late? If so, why then, is a special “stakeholder committee” needed to “advise” the Board?

2. Is this about giving the Big Property Owners a bigger say, as Commissioner Bohmert implied in her wish list of “Huge Stakeholders”?

If the objective is to let Big Property Owners have a say, it is one that is already being met.

As the debate about reducing density has unfolded in the past two months, Mayor Styron has not been reticent about stating his opposition to making changes that he says could affect waterfront property. (The mayor’s two acres of waterfront property could have 28 units on them at our current standard of 14 units/acre. He was quoted in the News and Observer this summer saying that if condos went on that property, it “wouldn’t hurt my feelings one bit.”)

Monday night Mayor Styron criticized the 5,000/5,000 plan (which, in the interests of full disclosure has been championed here) and claimed — without any documentation — that that compromise plan could lower the value of fellow waterfront owner Chris Fulcher’s property by “40-50%”.

“I don’t know,” the Mayor added, “if that couldn’t be grounds for a good lawsuit.”

Commissioner Bohmert herself, while not owning the acreage the mayor does, has also been outspoken at the Commissioner’s table, stating that changes to the GMO could affect waterfront property she and her husband own on Midyette Street, which they say, is their “401K”.

That viewpoint, then, that change to the GMO is bad, is aleady at the table. It’s spoken often. It’s just not in the majority.

Bypassing The Electoral Process?
3. So, is this push for a “stakeholders committee” a way to delay action on reducing density and an end-run around the results of last year’s election?

50 weeks ago, Oriental voters made a big change. Tired of a Town Board that viewed all growth as good and spurned public demand to tighten the rules on development, Oriental residents voted for people they thought would be more responsive. Three or four members of the current town board were viewed as reformers.

The mayor, you may recall, squeaked back in to office with an 11 vote margin…. over a candidate who started a write-in campaign a few weeks before election day. Against that backdrop, isn’t this Stakeholders Committee just a “we-don’t-like-the-results-of-the-election-so-let’s-change-the-rules” gambit? Another question: why does the rest of the board go along with it?

4. Could this “Stakeholders Committee” that gives advice on the GMO to the Town Board include people who own real estate in town but don’t live in Oriental? With the nebulous definitions floating around the other night, it was unclear.

Some non-residents with real-estate-business and development ties in town — Knute Bysheim of Whittaker Creek Marina who is proposing a dozen condos there, and who lives in Arapahoe; and Bob and Missy Baskervill who own the Coldwell/Banker Building and other properties, and live in the county as well — have been making themselves heard at public hearings, opposing changes to the GMO that would tighten the density standards. Do these voices need to be at a “Stakeholders Committee” table advising the town on GMO changes, as well?

If so, shouldn’t such views be balanced with the observation that those who live in the county now benefit from the county’s new rules limiting development to 4 units per acre? As such, should they be able to insist that people who live in Oriental just buck up and keep letting 14 units per acre happen in their neighborhoods?

Acreage As A Determining Factor?
5. Somewhere along the way, didn’t our system of government evolve from the idea that property ownership was not the determining factor in how big a say you had? Hasn’t our system of government been based on the idea that it is citizenship — in this case, residency in town — that gives you the ultimate say, a vote in the elections? Isn’t that the ‘stakeholder’ status that should apply — one person, one vote, regardless of acreage?

So why should the Town Board elected in that manner then turn around and set up an advisory committee on the GMO with members who are there precisely because they own large pieces of property??

Don’t We Already Have A Planning Board?
6. As proposed, the point of such a Stakeholders Committee would be to review and advise the Town Board on changes to the GMO. But why not, if the Town Board really thinks it can’t make up its mind on all of the density changes before it, why not give this task to the Planning Board? Isn’t that what they’re there for? It is an advisory board where developers/real estate interests already have adequate representation.

Conflict of Interest?
7. In promoting the stakeholder committee, Allen Propst said that the county had used such a concept in 1990 when it developed its land use plan. There’s a big difference, however, between a committee that develops the broad overview such as a land use plan or even a vision statement and one that deals with the nitty gritty of specific ordinances such as the GMO that could affect the property owned by those at the table. If one defines a stakeholder as someone with an “interest” in town, at what point does having ‘an interest’ cross over in to being a ‘conflict of interest’?

One aspect of North Carolina law may be of interest:
(italics added for the section that pertains to advisory boards which would seem to be the category for the Stakeholders Committee)

160A-381 (d) A city council member shall not vote on any zoning map or text amendment where the outcome of the matter being considered is reasonably likely to have a direct, substantial, and readily identifiable financial impact on the member. Members of appointed boards providing advice to the city council shall not vote on recommendations regarding any zoning map or text amendment where the outcome of the matter being considered is reasonably likely to have a direct, substantial, and readily identifiable financial impact on the member.

Perhaps there’s a place for these “stakeholders” — who some define as the large property owners, perhaps even non-resident property owners — to give input on a broader document about how the town grows. Maybe even, as someone suggested Monday night, on the Long Range Planning Committee, which Commissioner Barbara Venturi says is looking for members. (contact Barbara if you are interested)

But when it comes to creating or changing ordinances, no new stakeholder committee seemes necessary when we have a Planning Board already in place now, does it?

Those are the questions. Perhaps you have others. If so, now is the time to ask them … before Friday’s meeting when the Town Board may fall even further for what is, in essence, an undemocratic power-play. It is a scheme which would render meaningless the status of Oriental’s true stakeholders, its voters.

On this score, the comments of two speakers at Monday night’s hearing stand out.

As it became obvious that the board was being led toward the potential delaying tactic of the Shareholders Committee, resident Gerry Enzerink spoke against deferring matters to another committee. He told the board, “You are diluting the issue and walking away from your responsibility.”

“Hasn’t the board been elected to make decisions?,” Enzerink asked. “I’m asking you to stand up and make decisions.”

Earlier in the evening, Michael Paling, who owns a home on Whittaker Point Road, took issue with the delays in getting the changes made to the GMO. Paling’s comments came after Commissioner Bohmert spoke about not being “qualified” to make the changes.

“It’s a difficult job,” Paling acknowledged, “but I’m a bit distressed to hear anyone say that they don’t know what they’re doing or that they’re out of their depth.”

“I would like to remind you that you are commissioners,” , Paling said, “In other words, you were given a commission, a charge by the electorate to do the electorate’s bidding.”

Perhaps the electorate — the real stakeholders in Oriental — and their supporters need to make that clear to their commissioners in the next few days.

(And as a Plan B, offer their services for such a Stakeholders Committee.)

Friday’s meeting starts at 9:30am am. At Town Hall. It is not listed as a public hearing.

Posted Wednesday October 25, 2006 by Melinda Penkava

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