A joint meeting between the Cape Charles Town Council and Planning Commission took place on Tuesday, the topic being reviving the Historic District Overlay at the Route 13 entrance to the town. While town edge districts may be re-worked as part of the new zoning being taken up by the current County Board of Supervisors, the Town is still concerned that, as written, they will not provide enough protection, or give the town enough say in what goes out there.
Commissioner Andy Buchholz “They’re sticking that right in our face, that’s what they’re doing. It’s right at the mouth of the town. It gives us zero control.”
Councilman Chris Bannon, “At Hogg’s town hall meeting, it seemed Spencer was saying to come and talk to them; it seems they are much more open to changes.”
Mayor George Proto, “My sense is that the Supervisors will be listening to the towns and the citizens about what they want the zoning to be like. There’s a history here, that goes back before I got here, where we have been for some time in terms of trying to get a rational town edge zoning ordinance in place of some kind that would protect the entrances to the towns. We had some meetings…and the zoning that was proposed was a one size fits all and that’s what we see here. My belief is that we need to tailor the zoning to the individual towns. Cape Charles isn’t Exmore, we have different needs, different paths we are going down. The idea is to make the entrance to Cape Charles a welcoming area.”
Commissioner Michael Strub, “We have had meetings with the County planning commission in the past, and they went quite well; they were complimentary of Cape Capes, and that is something I would like to see happen again.”
Buchholz, “The only problem is that everyone on that planning commission is gone. They got rid of all the ones that were on our side. That’s where this came from [pointing to new zoning map].”
Bannon, “Duer is pleading to get his town edge back (Exmore), so you have someone on the board who is saying give us our town edge back. It is a new Board of Supervisors and I think the Town Council should meet with them. Don’t make everything McDonald’s 101. Make something that is Eastern Shore-ish..it may cost more. We never sat down with them and said this is what we want, and now having a town manager on board, is a good thing.”
Commissioner Dan Burke, “I would like to meet with their planning commission, because the last time, they were in…internal strife.”
Buchholz, “Yeah, they didn’t know what was going on. “
Commissioner Joan Natali, “It seems to me that if Exmore makes the plea that they want town edge then we are in a prime position to make a plea for town edge ourselves. And that makes two of the five towns asking for this, I don’t know about the other towns…”
Buchholz, “Cheriton wants to get the southern node, right at the light. “
Natali, “If we can get Cheriton, that is 60%, we can make a formal plea; I don’t believe we have ever made a formal plea as a town in writing.”
Proto,” We have.”
Natali, “Just once.”
Proto, “Twice. And we got town edge zoning, only this is what we got (holding up map). It wasn’t what we asked for, that’s the problem.”
Nataili, “So now it seems like we have an opportunity to plead our case. Why don’t we?”
Buchholz, “True.”
Proto, “No argument, but I think we need to contact the other towns, like Cheriton, Eastville and Exmore and talk about it with them. Have staff talk to them.”
Bannon, “Cheriton doesn’t have staff.”
Buchholz, “Yeah they do. Well they have a town council and mayor.”
Bannon, “Do they have a planner?”
Buchholz, “I don’t think so.”
Brent Manuel, “I can set that up.”
Proto, “When we go to the County, we need to have a pretty good idea of what we want to see.”
Buchholz, “Is this what we really want, commercial zoning right at the mouth of the town?”
Proto, “Right now this says that we don’t have any input. The most important thing is that we have input on what goes there and what doesn’t. If we’re going to put together a list of things we are going to go to the county with let’s generate that list.”
Bannon, “I think we should move on our own to meet with the supervisors. This overlay, we’ve been…it’s been there since 1992.”
Buchholz, “There you go. That’s what prompted our last meeting with the planning commission. We were there to talk about the proposed zoning changes, and they had no idea, and that’s why the bulk of them resigned…many of the uses are by right, so you could have a flea market right as you come into town.”
Town Manager Brent Manuel, “I would like to touch on the one size fits all that the mayor brought up, when you look at Eastville, Nassawaddox, Cheriton, Exmore and Cape Charles, and they said these are the properties we want to include in the town edge; what are those existing uses, and we’re going to take the existing uses and make them by-right, as to not create non-conforming uses. As where we could, the Town of Cape Charles take into account just the uses that are existing within our sort of town edge district as well as work with the county to establish what uses would be included within that town edge. So it is designed for the needs of the county as well as the town. That is why the list of uses is so long, because there are so many parcels, they did not want to exclude anyone, that is why we wound up with a long list of allowable uses. If we look at what we envision to be just the town of Cape Charles edge, we can sit down with the county to try and determine what the existing uses are, and what the town and county are comfortable with including; that is, a specific amendment to their code to address the town of Cape Charles edge.”
Proto, “So if there were uses that might be used by other town’s edges, it was put in here?”
Burke, “That makes it all the more reason why we should not interact with other towns like Exmore, because we’re going to get bogged down in their needs which are nowhere near what our needs are.”
Natali, “I just meant that 3 out of 5 towns going to the County, gives us more leverage to negotiate for our own, personal town edge.”
Proto, “We want to go to the county and say we can’t do this, we can’t do this one size fits all. The more towns that get on that train, the more likely we are to get that to happen.”
Bannon, “Something else to worry about is the Savage Farm, which I think backs up to Marina Villages, right? You can have a migrant labor camp, or a single wide mobile home park; and that’s prime property.”
Proto, “The point is, we want a town edge that is tailored specifically to the needs of Cape Charles. I think they’ll be receptive to this. Maybe I’m, being naïve.”
Buchholz, “They may be now, they weren’t before.”
Proto, “I think we need to move on this quickly. Let’s get something out to the county as quickly as possible.”
Natali, “If you want to FastTrack this, you need to think about how we are going to move this forward.”
Bannon, “We need to open up to them (BoS), saying that we need to work together…we have the same goals, but we are the goose that laid the golden egg.”
Buchholz, “Don’t tell them that.”
Proto, “They say that themselves.”
Bannon, “At least Spencer works to the point, he doesn’t fart around. He comes right out and he’ll blow up and scream at you, and then he’ll turn around and be nice to you. He doesn’t do any pussy footing around.”
Councilman Tom Godwin, “Is there anyone up there that we know, that we could use to ease this thing in first?”
Proto, “Granville Hogg would be the first one.”
Natali, “He is our representative.”
Proto, “We need to review our proposal for the original overlay district, and be sure that is what we want it to look like, what want the entrance to Cape Charles to look like, and go from there.”
Manuel, “It is important to remember that there is pending litigation against the county, and we’re in such a hurry to get this to the county, but there’s a very good chance they are going to do what they’re going to do, it may be better to wait until the dust settles and approach them with ‘we have an idea’; I almost feel like they know where they’re going. I don’t know that we want to get in the way of that process.”
Councilman Frank Wendell, “My understanding, was in 1992, we wanted to provide consistent setbacks and landscaping, so that whatever went out there, your commercial was landscaped in such a way that it stayed within the historic interest of Cape Charles, such as using crape myrtles and giving it a traditional, Cape Charles historic entrance into town; so if you get bogged down in trying to control what somebody’s going to do, which is questionable at best, you’re going to lose the best opportunity in a quarter century to get the corridor overlay, and that whatever happens, will mimic the historic nature of the town.”
Council directed staff and the Planning Commission research the previous Historic Overlay documentation. A work session, or joint meeting to review progress will be set in the near future.
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