Henderson’s Planning Board has a multitude of options when it again takes up an ordinance aimed at junkyards and auto repair facilities this afternoon.
As written, the ordinance would force an estimated 12 businesses, five in Henderson and seven in the Extra-Territorial Jurisdiction, to shut down in two to three years, Planning Director Grace Smith said in an interview.
But after hearing opposition to the ordinance from 11 of 15 people who spoke Aug. 20 at a public hearing before the Planning Board, the panel will weigh changes to the ordinance at its regular meeting at 3:30 p.m. today.
The ordinance grew out of the desire of the City Council, prodded by the Clean Up Henderson Committee, to crack down on illegal junkyards in Henderson. Some sites in residential areas have accumulated junk cars for decades, as the Planning Board saw during a tour of the city in January.
The council directed the Planning Board to work on an amortization ordinance to clear out the junk cars and make the allowed auto repair sites safer and better-looking.
As drafted, the ordinance would require auto repair facilities and junkyards in residential areas in the city and the ETJ to phase out their operations within three years. If the facility has a residence on site, the deadline would be two years.
The ordinance also would require facilities in allowed, nonresidential areas that predate the city’s zoning ordinance to comply with the ordinance within three years.
Smith sent letters to 31 businesses that the ordinance would affect, although she acknowledged there could be more facilities in the ETJ that her office doesn’t know about.
The standards for new auto repair facilities, including fencing, screening and paving, sparked as much protest of the draft ordinance as the requirement for residential-area facilities to close.
Smith said the big complaint from the businesses was the paving requirement because of the expense. That was the case, for example, with Perfection Auto Body and Marine Repair, a Raleigh Road business that gained notice as a friend of the cleanup committee by volunteering to haul away junk cars for free.
Committee Chairwoman Lynn Harper, who spoke in favor of the ordinance at the public hearing, said she’s sorry that the ordinance is causing Perfection trouble. She said her concern, as part of a city committee, isn’t the ETJ, and she expressed hope that the Planning Board can make accommodations for some of the existing businesses without undoing the main purpose of the ordinance: to stop auto repair facilities from becoming junkyards.
That’s the problem that incited the cleanup committee to seek council help, and that’s the problem Planning Board members saw during their tour of affected sites. As board member Roberta Douglas said during the April 20 meeting, for all the talk from ordinance opponents about cars being stockpiled because of insurance and investigation delays and late customer payments, those reasons are the exceptions. They don’t explain 40-year-old, rusted-out car carcasses with trees growing through them.
Still, there are serious concerns about shutting down businesses that have existed for more than 30 years, which is the case with several of the affected auto shops. Cleanup committee member Diane Barberio spoke in favor of the ordinance April 20 but also said she doesn’t want to close small businesses.
At the cleanup committee’s meeting last week, Harper agreed that wasn’t the intent, but she said the businesses affected within the city are a serious problem. She noted that some auto repair shops are well-kept, so there’s no reason for the others to pile up junk cars.
Harper pointed to the cleanup of Satterwhite 66 on Oxford Road as an example of how an auto shop can look good if the owners want it to.
She also said she doesn’t think the mood of the city is as opposed to the ordinance as the Planning Board hearing indicated. Most of the supporters there didn’t speak, and while the businesses were notified of the hearing, their residential neighbors were not.
City Council member Mary Emma Evans, however, said she has heard nothing but opposition to the proposed ordinance.
She said she has received so many calls that she hasn’t been able to sleep, and most are from people who complained about junk yards but are upset about the ordinance. “They don’t think people should have to close, just clean up.”
Evans said many of the owners are too old to do anything else, but Police Chief Glen Allen said that if an elderly owner sells to a younger man, the problem could fester for 50 more years.
An added cleanup-related complication that arose during the Planning Board hearing is what happens to facilities in residential areas if the auto repair shops close. The buildings would not be appropriate for homes, so they would have to be torn down or would add to the problem of abandoned structures in the city.
When the Planning Board discusses its next move today, Smith said, it will have a lot of flexibility. Rather than force facilities to shut down or fully comply with the zoning ordinance’s rules, such as paving, the board could require partial compliance for existing businesses. Because the issue is zoning, however, the ETJ will have to be included in any ordinance because the city exercises zoning authority over that area.
The draft amortization ordinance isn’t the only issue regarding auto repair facilities on the Planning Board’s agenda today. The board also is scheduled to hold a public hearing on a zoning ordinance amendment that would change enclosed vehicle repair from a use by right to a use by special permit in the I-2 (industrial) and B-2 and B-2A (business) districts.
The only other matter on the agenda is a request from Faye Stewardson to subdivide a 1-acre tract on Red Oak Road in the ETJ.
The meeting starts at 3:30 in the council chambers at the Municipal Building.for accreditation daycareproperty programs accredited manageramerica first union george credit stcredit association mortgage american unioncredit california merchant card services accountaccreditation isoplanner estate accreditedcredit tv ads acting commercial Map