PLANNING DEPARTMENT
Annual Report 2000
Morgantown Planning Milestones
1944 - City Council adopted first Zoning Ordinance
1959 - WV Planning Enabling Act Adopted
1961 - City's 1st Comprehensive Plan Adopted
1970 - Comprehensive Plan updated
1979 - 1st City Planner hired
1999 - Comprehensive Plan updated
The primary goal of the Planning Department is to promote orderly development to ensure that the health, safety, welfare, and convenience of Morgantown's citizens will be preserved and enhanced.
To that end, the Planning Department provides staff support to several citizen boards and commissions including the following:
Additionally, the Planning Department provides support services to other City Departments and outside agencies to accomplish community development objectives.
CURRENT PROGRAMS AND SERVICES
The work program activities of the Planning Department are categorized as long-range, special studies, community development, and current-planning.
Long-range planning
Long-range planning involves the Comprehensive Plan process, which includes citizen reviews and public meetings leading to the adoption of the Plan. Major updates of the City's Comprehensive Plan generally occur every ten years, with minor updates every five years. The latest update to the City Plan occurred in January of last year. A minor update is planned for 2004.
Special Studies
Special studies include both scheduled and unscheduled requests for staff research and analysis of particular topics/projects. Periodic requests come from the Housing Authority, Main Street Morgantown, Landmarks Commission, and Vision 2000 to name a few. Additional requests arise internally from City Council and boards and commissions. These studies can involve interaction with committees and interest groups and eventually foster policy/ordinance formulation and implementation.
Community Development
Community development refers to a wide range of general and specific activities pertaining to community improvement and quality of life matters. Attending meetings of various interest groups and community service organizations, and interactions with other governmental units fall into this category. Plans for 2001 include occasional attendance at Mon. County Planning meetings as they phase land use controls.
Current Planning
Current planning or land use control essentially involves the day-to-day interactions with the general public regarding complaints and inquiries and office operations including the review of signs, grading, building permits, and business licenses for zoning compliance.
The office also administers applications for variances, conditional uses, rezonings, property subdivisions, and site development reviews. Certain applications have a review process governed by State law and City ordinance which includes public notification/legal advertisement and letters to property owners within 200 feet. The Planning Department prepares agendas and staff reports. It also records meeting attendance, minutes, and follow-up communications.
The current planning work program activity comprises the majority of staff time.
OFFICE RESOURCES
From 1991, to the summer of 1999, the office operated with a Director and two part-time staff members. Upon the retirement of the Director and subsequent hiring of a new Director, the part-time support positions (Asst. Planner & Secretary) were combined into one full-time Assistant Planner position. The Assistant Planner's time is divided between the intake and processing of current planning applications and taking minutes for various meetings and providing written record/communications for each case. The office has also been able to draw upon the assistance of student interns for a variety of projects. Plans for 2001 include hiring two interns for 15-20 hours per week (unpaid).
Office equipment includes two new desktop computers, an older desktop computer, an HP LaserJet printer, and a color bubble jet printer. Plans for the future include purchasing two Arc View GIS mapping packages for the Director and Assistant Planner. The Department currently relies on Engineering / Public Works for plotting maps. This reliance has lead to problems and delays in printing needed maps, because of the overwhelming time demands such requests place on that Department. Engineering staff simply do not have the time and personnel to fulfill such requests in a timely manner. With the impending networking of all City Hall computers and independent Arc View licenses, the Planning Department staff will be able to produce its own maps without asking for assistance from an overburdened Engineering Department.
PAST YEAR'S ACTIVITIES
The Department experienced serious interruptions in work goals this year with the resignation of the previous Planning Director in June. His place was ably filled for a few months by the Assistant Planner. During this period, the Assistant was operating a "one-man shop", and was able to keep up with the intensive daily permitting and public hearing responsibilities. A new Director was hired in September of this year. The Assistant Planner tendered his resignation effective December 8, in order to pursue a masters degree in social work. A new Assistant was hired and began work on December 4.
Zoning map amendments adopted this year were limited to 2 cases including the rezoning of the Wharf District to B-4 from Industrial and a rezoning of Sabraton Plaza from Industrial to B-5.
The Traffic Commission considered 24 requests in 2000. These requests included no parking zones, stop and yield signs, one-way traffic configurations in the Wharf District, relocation of a bus stop, and speeding problems.
The Planning Commission and Board of Zoning Appeals collectively reviewed 41 variance requests, 46 conditional use requests, 12 subdivisions, 2 administrative appeals, 4 zoning text amendments, and 20 major site plan reviews. These included the new hotel conference center in the Wharf District being constructed by Platinum Properties.
The following table depicts the annual totals for the past five years by the type of case.
Click for larger view
Trends:
Site development reviews have remained static since 1999, however the scope and magnitude of the projects have increased dramatically with the Wharf District developments.
Conditional use requests rebounded from an off year in 1999 to come close to 1998 numbers. These can be attributed to a return to a normal number of home occupation requests.
Other Activities:
A Technical Review Process continues to foster Departmental coordination on development review items and provide an opportunity for developers to meet with various Departments (Planning, Engineering, Fire, Building Inspections) in one forum.
Planning Commission and Board of Zoning Appeals meetings began being televised in November of this year.
A "GIS Summit" was organized by the Department to explore cooperation and coordination possibilities with all agencies in the County that use mapping software.
FORECAST OF ACTIVITIES 2001
In addition to the regular monthly cases for the Planning Commission/Traffic Commission/BZA:
SUMMARY
The past year has been an exciting time for Planning in the City of Morgantown. With the favorable economic climate and adoption of a new City Plan, the stage has been set for Plan implementation and vision realization at an accelerated pace. The Planning Department, in concert with other City Departments, will continue to comprehensively plan for the orderly growth and harmonious development of the City of Morgantown into the new millennium.