At last week’s meeting attorney Walter James Gordon brought attention to the language used in the Board of Commissioners moratorium that would hinder subdivision approvals.
“There are certain things you can do with a moratorium and some things you can’t,” Gordon said. “And the language in this particular paragraph there’s kind of a mixture of both.”
The moratorium will stop the approval of subdivisions with lots less than one acre and only allow for modular or mobile homes and site-specific stick-built housing.
Gordon presented his case to the board with two resolutions that would bring people clarity and an opportunity to see the process as it goes along.
“For clarity’s sake I would like to suggest that you supplant this with two resolutions,” said Gordon. “The first resolution would be to implement the 180-day moratorium on approval of subdivision lots of less than an acre, tiny homes, container homes, experimental subdivisions, multi-family dwellings, and anything that basically is not stick built, factory built or a mobile home.
“Or you could look at that in one other way; anything that is not a single family residence, those would be under the moratorium.”
Gordon argued that if a subdivision came in with acre lots that provided single family residences underneath experimental, tiny, or container homes, then they would be approvable under the moratorium.
However, anything that deviated from the definition, Gordon argued, would be covered by the moratorium.
“And of course even with the moratorium you can still consider something if somebody asked you to do that,” said Gordon. “And that brings to mind; I think there needs to be also a provision to determining whether or not a project was grandfathered. Whether or not a project started before this moratorium was imposed.”
Gordon gave a few examples on how he believed that could be determined: If a landowner has engaged a surveyor, if they have planted something or drawn a planned diagram, if a landowner or his agents were able to bring it before an environmental health officer, or if an owner has engaged in a substantive conversation with the corps of engineers concerning dock numbers and placement.
“Those are the things that could be considered as allowing projects to be grandfathered,” said Gordon. “I do think though that as a practical matter those would have to be dealt with on a case by case basis. We need to be specific as possible, but those are several things that could be done.”
The second resolution that Gordon brought before the board was for them to review the current subdivision ordinance with a view toward revision. Part of the review would be to look into the issue of homeowners associations.
“You would review the issue of restrictive covenants being applied to all lots of the subdivision,” Gordon said. “You would review the type of dwellings that would be permissible, and you would review the other things in that paragraph such as setback requirements and lot size.
“All of those things would be reviewed in an effort to revise the subdivision ordinance, because I think that’s really what you’re doing if I understand that right.
“When you’re saying the setback requirements would be reviewed that doesn’t mean that you’re clamping a moratorium on developments, but it does bring to a halt developments of under one acre lots.
“Other than saying that the developments of other single family residences. That could be the moratorium.”
All five board members voted unanimously in favor of adjusting the language in the moratorium.
