City Council - Special Meeting

Quick one to Tiffany, because we've mentioned this in the past. What about leveraging contacts we have at HOAs and stuff like that to see if they would be interested in circulating this information?

Awesome. And one more quick question to the process. You mentioned stakeholders. What key stakeholders specifically are you referring to?

Okay, the only thing I'll say on that, because we've talked about this before, is that doesn't need to take priority or a higher weight than what our community is saying, right? Because that's some of the feedback we've received is that folks believe that some of our codes have been more geared to an open development policy rather than accommodating the existing population here. So keep mindfulness of that.

That's a good point. Maybe one to add, too, just to keep in your mind, historic preservation, whether it's through the county and or any of the local chapters as well.

That's impressive. Good job. That's not what people come to us for. That's right. We do not get that.

But part of that is by design, because it's always been that the Planning and Zoning Board is the more technical expertise. Frequently there have been architects and engineers and attorneys and whatnot on the board. So you can really look at some of the nuts and bolts based on you all's particular background and experience, where I do think council's perspective is more of a general policy, broader strokes, what's the, you know, the benefit and harm to the the community as a whole, and we're not probably going to get into the, you know, we can we have sometimes get into the technical weeds as

And if I might add one more dimension to that, there is also the aspect of flexibility. how much should be left say to the discretion of staff without ever coming to the planning board or council and that might be handled administratively versus what might council and planning board want to see and be able to weigh in on. And what are the impacts of each approach for the overall code and structure.

Like side setbacks, rear setbacks, like especially along Wilkinson Boulevard, which is 30 feet, I believe, but many of the lots there are... more narrow and so that frequently comes up in order to locate a business on these lots and again that leads to our our policies at cross purposes where on the one hand we say we want to encourage development on the wilkinson corridor, but on the other hand, we have these provisions that offer a lot of red tape and seem to be detrimental to the development that we say we want to foster and encourage.

we released that I believe but they're talking about the buffer actually coming off the road like if you see that massive sidewalk that's like coming into Belmont that would have been a requirement and you have to watch out for being

counterproductive in what we're doing that, you know, I've certainly heard, you know, on the one hand, we're trying to, you know, we want oversight and we want control because I will say, you know, and I think my colleagues on council, as elected officials, you're the ones that hear about things. You're the one that people call, how could you approve that?

So if it's going to go through and we're going to get the feedback and we're going to get the criticism or whatever, we might as well have control over what we're going to be criticized for. And so that, I think, is a temptation that we want to have a say over a lot of things because if we're going to be the ones that have to answer for it in the community, then we want to have control over that as opposed to, well, it was an administrative decision. Is that really going to How does that go over? On the other hand, if you're too rigid and you have too many of these things, I know I hear that p

Well, Jim, that's where my headspace immediately went because we've had this conversation before, like over the four or five years I've been on, right? The reason why we want that two-prong approach, you want the rigid approach so that it can force conditional use so that we can be accountable to what we're bringing into the community, right? So, I mean, that's why, and I still believe it's the best option, particularly in a day and age where our zoning abilities continue to be stripped away from us. If you take something out of the code, You probably can't add it back in due to certain laws t

can handle that in your task. Because you can write a great code, but when the state comes along and says, oh, we really strengthened our traffic study requirements and the requirements for TIA or TTM or whatever. And when the state comes along and says, oh, well, that doesn't apply to off-site development. That doesn't apply in this instance. That doesn't apply in that instance. you know, how effective is it, how, you know, a lot of these different, that's just one example, but, and I don't know what you can really do about that, because you're not in the state, you don't control the state le

And maybe that's where you all can help work us through, because I think I get what you're saying, but I don't think, speaking from counsel, that there's any sort of comfort with the standards as they exist, whether that's sufficient if that's fair to say if we if we as part of this process could become comfortable with those standards or we say all right, this is all well and good. And so you meet these standards, you know it doesn't have to come to us, it can be administratively approved, but I don't think there's that comfort level. based on our experience over the past time that any of us

Well, it's also difficult too, Jim, because it's not one shoe fits all in our area. We're very unique that we're on a peninsula that's very choked right now as it pertains to traffic and infrastructure. I mean, additionally too, you know, I do believe we have the secret sauce in a lot of instances because if you look at our downtown and our main street, I mean, it's thriving. We've got people who want to come here who want to shop here who want to live here so there's something to be said that we're doing right right so it's not to say it's all doom and gloom and we're not attracting the best

Well, infill you probably wouldn't see. I think based on the amendments we've made though, most major developments that would require a traffic study at a minimum are going to come through conditional zoning now, but probably infill would not require that.

I think that's a very good point that perhaps you are looking from the outside can, you know, why do you have this requirement? Why do you have this requirement? And if the answer is, well, this is how it was when we got here, we don't really, you know, then that might be an indication that maybe that's prime for, Because I would be willing to bet there's a fair number of things like that, that at whatever point it made sense, but in this, you know, whoever put it in there or drafted it is long gone, and the folks here dealing with it don't really know why it's there or what purpose it serves.

I mean, it's a good point too. I mean, if you think about it and look at Belmont at what city proper, I mean, there's not that many large tracts of land left to be developed. You're thinking Pittenger 2 and 3, maybe some infill, the Stowe property the city just acquired, and then the Karstarpin properties. And then, of course, anything in North Belmont, but there's only a select few. And that almost leverages me back to my example of being more specific in regards to what we can get into the city of Belmont because we're really becoming almost tapped as to what we would want or could get, I gu

And I think that's a question. How can the code adapt or be, I mean, because sometimes things, you know, 10 years ago, what's a data center? So obviously you can't have a list of everything and how it's gonna be regulated, but we have run into this three or four times over the last couple years where a certain type of use or business comes along and there are problems and sensitivities and concerns with it, but oh, it's not defined in the code, so it's just treated like a regular old business or whatever, and by the time we realize, whether it's Airbnbs or, yes, tattoo parlors, or food trucks,

Because the fear is, and I will reiterate this because it seems like it perhaps went over. There are no applications for data centers currently pending. There are no plans. There's nothing before us. Nobody has filed an application to bring a data center to Belmont. But we want to have this conversation because... Our fear is what happens if somebody should do that before we have the regulatory framework in place, and then they get the version of the code that was in effect when they filed their application. That's the fear. That's why we partook of the exercise.

And I think that's what we were asking staff to help us understand where does that fall if it was a buy right? I think we had discussed high level maybe like in the light industrial or something of that scale, but I think I was... Okay, yeah.

Conditional zoning, special use permits, or say perhaps based on definitions or lack of definitions, something might not be allowed in a particular zoning district where there's a proposal to put it, so we'd potentially have to amend, we'd either have to define it and define which zones it's permitted in or amend those zones to include that now defined use. So to Ashton's example, like the ABC store was only allowed in a certain area zone and the ABC board wanted to put a new store in a different location but that location was zoned it was a different zoning district and the way the code was s

and downtown might be another place to look at that because i'm not entirely sure based on some of the things that we that have come before us downtown is the zoning districts downtown or perhaps best aligned with our vision for downtown exactly

Is that a gap? I think that's a good point. Because if you think about it, particularly in industrial or in a data warehousing, me if i'm wrong tiffany but we talked about this at the last council meeting is is there triggers of usage of our utilities right so if you're using x amount of gallons of water and you're going to put a strain on the system you shouldn't be charged probably the nominal fee in regards to usage because you're going to be responsible for a higher wear and tear on the assets right so that's a good point

I mean, that's probably addressed in the noise ordinance, which is separate from the land development code. Is that correct? I mean...

What do you mean by that? Is that a curiosity?

But making it required in a by-right scenario is what you're saying?

Parks, is that like the new term to circumvent the impact fees term that the state's outlawed, I guess, in North Carolina?

Well, I mean, infill is going to be relevant just because, like Alex has said, we're about to be, you know, before too long, we're going to be built out. So, you know, most of the what's going to occur after that would be infill, I would say.

Which is why buffers are important, because then it forces a conditional.

I mean, there's also a big component too that we can't discredit is people have to sell their land in order for something to be developed, right? You think about two parcels, the gas station, the sake, I mean, they finally came up, the broker decided to work with it and build something. Things are coming, but you can't go and force someone to go sell their land. So, I mean, that's a big requirement in order to start the redevelopment. But didn't we also say we were gonna master plan that specific area

Where you can sleep good at night is this came up with Lakeview Farms. If it has to go through the county, there are certain requirements that would require large lots. They don't have the sewer infrastructure you're having to build. Potential septic tanks or wells if they're not within our existing water structure to the coal ash so there's offsets. To what. If they would have built that multimillion dollar sewer becomes unfeasible from an Roi you just got to be practical about that stuff yeah yeah.

It's a very fine balance because I'm not a fan of New York City. But, I've been to many cities in Europe. I lived in Vilnius, Lithuania for a couple months. Same concept that I had an apartment and Airbnb and I could walk wherever I wanted, never had to worry about a car. Didn't even really have to worry about public, you know, I could just walk wherever. So I agree with you about walkability. It's just hard because until you have that situation where Everything you need is walkable you're still going to need your car at this point to go to the grocery store to do some other things, and so, th

I think maybe just one thing to add. I think a developer that did a really good job isn't a client. I think the connectivity that we have between our neighborhoods and eventually the commercial and retail that will potentially get out there in restaurants is really nice.

Oh, we only stopped at seven. We've got a couple more here.