The Henderson Planning Board needed only about 10 minutes Monday to endorse two efforts to establish better controls over automobile facilities in the city, including the elimination of junkyards.
The board voted 8-0 to schedule a special meeting for Wednesday, April 20, at 3:30 p.m. to hold a public hearing on a Clean Up Henderson Committee-inspired proposed ordinance. The main focus of that ordinance is the elimination of auto repair facilities and junkyards that don’t fit the zoning ordinance but predate it.
The amortization ordinance would give affected businesses up to three years to fully conform to the zoning ordinance or close, depending on whether the business is an allowed use where it exists.
“I think three years is exactly right,” board member Roberta Douglas said during the brief discussion on the draft ordinance.
City Attorney John Zollicoffer attended the meeting to answer any questions, but the Planning Board members didn’t have any. They held several discussions about the issue at previous meetings and had about 10 days to review the draft before Monday’s meeting.
Planning Director Grace Smith said she’ll spread the word about the ordinance to as many potentially affected people as possible, including cleanup committee Chairwoman Lynn Harper, who has pushed for an amortization ordinance for more than a year.
Smith said she planned to give Harper a draft of the “ordinance providing for the removal of certain non-conforming auto repair facilities, non-accessory outdoor storage and junkyards” after the meeting.
“She seems pleased with the synopsis I gave her,” Smith said of Harper.
The ordinance would add two sections to the zoning code:
* Section 708 applies to auto repair facilities that are in allowed zones but never got permits because they existed before the zoning ordinance.
The new ordinance would require the removal of such repair facilities unless they took a series of specific steps to get zoning permits and comply with the zoning code. The facility would have to apply for a zoning permit within 120 days after the City Council enacted the ordinance.
A repair facility couldn’t expand and couldn’t accept any vehicles that could be classed as abandoned or nuisances or that lacked current registration and a current inspection sticker. All such vehicles on the site, any junked vehicles, and any car parts stored outside or unusable must be removed within a year.
All paving and screening required by the zoning permit and zoning code would have to be in place within two years.
All requirements of the zoning code and permit must be met within three years. Failure to meet any part of the schedule would force the immediate removal of the repair facility.
* Section 709 covers the removal of auto repair facilities and junk yards that don’t conform with the zoning code but were grandfathered in.
Those businesses would have three years to shut down as long as they stuck to the ordinance’s schedule. Missing a deadline would force a business to close immediately.
As with Section 708, an auto repair facility couldn’t expand and couldn’t accept any vehicles that could be classed as abandoned or nuisances or that lacked current registration and a current inspection sticker. All such vehicles on the site, any junked vehicles, and any car parts stored outside or unusable must be removed within a year.
A repair facility with a residence on the site would have two years to close and remove all car parts and vehicles under repair. Other repair sites would have three years to shut down.
As for junkyards, they could not expand or accept more junk or vehicles.
Junkyards in residential areas would have to clear all junked vehicles and other junk within 75 feet of the front of the property and within 50 feet of the sides and back of the property within a year and would have to get rid of all of the junk within two years.
Junkyards on sites of less than 2 acres in nonresidential areas would have to meet the same clearance standards within one year, would have to clear the area within 150 feet of the front and 100 feet of the sides and back within two years, and would have to close within three years.
Junkyards on bigger nonresidential sites would have to clear the area within 125 feet of the front and 100 feet of all other property lines in the first year and within 250 feet of the front and 200 feet of other property lines after two years. Those junkyards would have to close within three years of the ordinance’s passage.
The ordinance would not apply to salvage yards on at least 10-acre sites in the I-2 and I-3 industrial zones as long as they maintained all of the proper state and federal permits.
The only other issue on the Planning Board’s agenda Monday was a list of staff recommendations for permitting requirements for auto sales and auto repair facilities. Smith said that instead of allowing such facilities by right in certain zones and by special-use permits in other zones, the planning staff wants to require special-use permits for such businesses in any zone.
Smith told Zollicoffer she is satisfied with the proposed conditions on the special-use permit.
She said she will set a public hearing on the recommendations for the Planning Board’s regular meeting in May.