Planning Department - Annual Report

PLANNING DEPARTMENT
Annual Report 2001

Annual Report Table of Contents

Morgantown Planning Milestones

1944 - City Council adopted first Zoning Ordinance

1959 - WV Planning Enabling Act Adopted

1961 - City's 1^st Comprehensive Plan Adopted

1970 - Comprehensive Plan updated

1979 - 1^st City Planner hired

1999 - Comprehensive Plan updated

2001 - Embark on total rewrite of zoning ordinance

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:

Planning Commission
Board of Zoning Appeals
Downtown Sign and Design Review Committee

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. An exciting program on traditional town planning and urban design was developed and offered to various community groups throughout the year. It was very well received.

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, recommendations, staff reports, records meeting attendance, minutes, and follow-up communications.

The current planning work program activity comprises the majority of staff time (70% or more).

OFFICE RESOURCES

The office is currently staffed with a director and an assistant planner, who doubles as the departmental secretary. The office has developed a strong relationship with the Department of Geography and the Department of Landscape Architecture at West Virginia University, in terms of offering unpaid student internships. Staff has also occasionally benefitted from the use of adult volunteers from the community.

Office equipment includes two newer desktop computers, an older desktop computer, an HP LaserJet printer, two HP inkjet printers, and a fax machine. Plans for the future include purchasing of Arc View GIS mapping package. The Department currently relies on Engineering / Public Works for plotting of maps. This reliance has lead to serious challenges and delays in printing needed maps because of the time demands such requests place on that Department. With the impending networking of all City Hall computers and independent Arc View licenses, Planning Department staff will be able to produce their own maps without asking for assistance from the Engineering Department.

PAST YEAR'S ACTIVITIES

The Department experienced a period of stability as the new director and new assistant planner became accustomed to departmental routines.

Zoning map amendments adopted this year were limited to 3 cases, as follows:

United National Bank, Van Voorhis Road, PRO to B-I.
Glenmark, Wharf District, from B-4 non-pedestrian to B-4 pedestrian.
Whitman, Augusta, Collins Ferry Road, R-1 to B-1.

The Traffic Commission was very active in 2001, with the biggest issues being the removal of “turn on red” movements at Pleasant and High Street and speeding on Willowdale Road. In the middle of the year, the staffing for the Traffic Commission was modified to reduce the Department’s role to an administrative one whereby staff accepts applications, takes photographs, etc. Departmental staff no longer attends the meetings with Engineering and Police Department staff taking on that function.

The Planning Commission and Board of Zoning Appeals collectively reviewed 8 variance requests (down from 41 in 2000); 10 conditional use requests (down from 46 in 2001); 10 subdivisions; 6 zoning text amendments, including a very important shared parking ordinance for the B-4 zoning district; and 13 major site plan reviews. The site plans of significance were the Pinion Building, a 6 story mixed use building next to La Casa restaurant, and three good-sized apartment buildings.

Of striking significance is the reduction in the number of variances considered and granted. Staff considers this to be a major victory in the sense that a large number of variances generally indicates two things: an ordinance that is grossly out of date and not reflective of current growth trends, and/or a board that is too accommodating to variance requests.

Staff worked hard to support the Board of Zoning Appeals in upholding the integrity of the zoning ordinance and of sticking to evaluation of requests based on strict “findings of fact”. Subsequently, the number of variances approved began to decline, which tends to also produce a corresponding drop in the number of variance requests, as people get word of the higher review standards.

The significant drops in the numbers of conditional use requests and site plan reviews can generally be explained by the soft economy of 2001

	'96	'97	'98	'99	'00	'01 *
Site Development Reviews	13	14	15	21	20	13
Conditional Uses	29	33	43	23	46	10
Minor Subdivisions	14	14	13	15	10	10
Major Subdivisions	1	0	1	0	2	0
Rezoning	7	4	5	1	2	9
Variances	19	25	30	24	41	8
Text Changes	0	3	5	4	4	6
Total	79	83	93	112	125	56

* Does not include cases to be heard in December.

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.

The Downtown Sign and Design Review Committees were consolidated into one group to reduce red tape and delays in review.

MAIN CHALLENGES

There are a number of challenges the Department is working to resolve.. They include time available for staff for zoning enforcement, especially with regards to signs, and the challenge of improving coordination with various Departments on development review in the Downtown. The latter challenge should be relatively simple to solve. The former will be more difficult.

FORECAST OF ACTIVITIES, 2002

In addition to the regular monthly cases for the Planning Commission/Traffic Commission/BZA:

Continue to work with business and property owners near the Riverfront to support redevelopment in accordance with the City's Comprehensive Plan and ASPIRE Plan.
Continue the process begun in December of 2001, of completely overhauling the zoning ordinance text to make it more logically ordered and user-friendly and to incorporate smart growth principles. It is anticipated that this will consume the bulk of staff time for the first 9 months of 2002.
Continue to streamline the Site Development Review process initiated in 1999.
Create development handbook once zoning ordinance is rewritten.
Work with the University to establish sensible zoning district classifications on University-owned lands (agriculture farms). Work on this cannot proceed until the new zoning ordinance is finished.
Become self-sufficient in computer mapping and networking capabilities.
Streamline the development process to eliminate wasteful duplication of effort and needless obstructive barriers to quality development.
Develop a slide program on pedestrian safety and planning.

SUMMARY

The past year has been productive, in terms of realizing and/or beginning some long range planning goals. The Department also looks forward to a collaborative process by working with interested stakeholders on the rewrite of the zoning ordinance.