Henderson’s amortization ordinance is going back to the drawing board under the guidance of new Planning Director Erris Dunston.
Both the Planning Board and the City Council agreed at their meetings Monday to take another try at refining the legislation, aimed at auto repair shops and junkyards that preceded and don’t comply with the city’s zoning ordinance.
The Planning Board worked for months on the amortization ordinance as a way to protect residential neighborhoods from junked cars that some businesses have allowed to pile up for decades.
A few dozen businesses in the city and the Extra-Territorial Jurisdiction would be affected by the amortization ordinance, either because they are in residential districts or because they don’t meet the zoning rules in such areas as privacy fencing and paving. Former Planning Director Grace Smith estimated that the amortization ordinance, as passed by the Planning Board in May, would force five businesses inside the city and seven in the ETJ to close or move within three years.
Dunston, appearing Monday at her first Planning Board meeting since starting as Henderson’s planning director June 27, said she’s concerned about passing an ordinance that would prevent small businesses from operating profitably.
“I think she’s got a good point about what she wants to do,” Planning Board Chairman Gray Faulkner said.
Dunston said that although the amortization ordinance would put tight reins on auto repair businesses, “there are businesses that, with a little effort, could conform in the areas they are. … I would like to try to help the business that can conform and that is willing to conform.”
She said amortization is often seen as a “beast,” but the point of such an ordinance is to help neighborhoods, not harm businesses.
Dunston proposed a dual approach Monday: a zoning amendment that adds towing services as allowed businesses with special-use permits in the B-4, I-1, I-2 and I-3 districts; and the amortization ordinance.
The zoning amendment is a new proposal that comes two months after the City Council passed a similar amendment for auto repair facilities. The idea, Dunston said, is to establish conditions under which such automobile-related businesses can operate without damaging their neighbors.
Dunston brought forward the idea for the amendment on towing services in response to a rezoning request Charles Bowman made to the Planning Board last month. In that case, Bowman wants to change a 3-acre residentially zoned tract on St. Andrews Church Road to a B-4 (neighborhood commercial) district, reflecting three decades of auto repair, towing and other businesses at the intersection with N.C. 39 north of the city.
That rezoning request was complicated by the fact that board member Cornell Manning lives neat the site and opposes the zoning change. The Planning Board tabled the request last month and created a study committee to visit the area and report back to the full board.
Dunston said the special committee met and visited the site, but she would like to address the general issue with the towing amendment to the zoning ordinance before returning to Bowman’s request. Board member Tommy Riddle said that keeping the Bowman request tabled made particular sense Monday because three of the study committee’s members — Mike Inscoe, Roberta Douglas and Phil Walters — were absent.
Also at Dunston’s request, the Planning Board tabled the proposed amendment. The board and the planning director will hold a work session to hammer out an amendment that can accommodate auto-related businesses that are willing to do the things necessary to be good neighbors.
Dunston said she wants to present the amendment and the amortization ordinance as a package to the City Council to address concerns about eliminating junk and protecting jobs at the same time. “By doing that,” she said, “it will help the people who want to be helped.”
The City Council tabled the amortization ordinance in May, and it was back on the agenda Monday night.
Fitting Dunston’s plans, the council sent the issue to the Land Use and Planning Committee, chaired by Elissa Yount, for a discussion about what the city does and doesn’t need in the amortization ordinance.
Dunston will take the information from that committee meeting to the work session of the Planning Board, which then will attempt to produce proposals that meet the council’s desires.