Board of Aldermen discuss flexible zoning district

The Carrboro Board of Alderman voted Tuesday to move the discussion of an ordinance — which would provide a site specific, flexible zoning district — to a public hearing.

To be considered for this flexible zoning district, the land must be at least 25 acres, under single ownership, be located near a major road and have a specific planning study conducted by the town.

At the beginning of the meeting, Alderman Jacquelyn Gist said she would not support this amendment to the Land Use Ordinance.

"This cuts out the community having input in the details and approving the details," Gist said. "It puts staff in an unfair position."

She argued that it was too much like form-based code which requires approval by the board, but not by the public.

Michael Brough, the town attorney, said this ordinance has been put forward due to problems that have occurred with rezoning in the past.

"It was written in response to the concern when you have a process like with a larger piece of property," Brough said. "The board was looking for a process that would not require all that level of detail with all expense that would be shut down."

Omar Zinn, who works with Zinn Design Build, said moving forward with this ordinance would allow someone to rezone a piece of property without spending hundreds of thousands of dollars with complete uncertainty.

"I was taken back at first by the first comments because I think as a group we’ve spent several years discussing this," Zinn said. "I know people are concerned about what might happen, that people don’t wanna see just form-based code and a staff member just signing a piece of paper and just lifting up the gates for whatever the next piece of paper might hold."

After Zinn's comments, Gist said with some tweaking to the ordinance, she'd feel comfortable moving the it to a public hearing to see what the town has to say about it.

The board agreed to hold a public hearing October 13 at Carrboro town hall.

Notable:

The town also discussed whether or not the 32 Airbnbs in Carrboro should be required to have special use permits in order to rent out their rooms and homes.

Quotable:

"Two-thirds of OWASA’s customers — two-thirds — are two months behind on their water bill at all times," said Braxton Foushee, long-time Chapel Hill civil rights activist.