SILER CITY — In its regular meeting last Tuesday — adjusted to accommodate the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday — Siler City’s board of commissioners evaluated dozens of amendments to the town’s unified development ordinance before reviewing a bid for city hall’s renovation and approving a new program to recruit police officers.
The town’s UDO outlines most local regulations concerning land development and use, building construction, zoning, subdivision development, stormwater expansion and maintenance and natural resource conservation.
It was originally adopted in 1993; the most recent amendments were made in 2014.
This year’s overhaul involved mostly clerical changes to conform local law with amendments to the state’s general statute 160D — a consolidated version of development regulations previously listed under chapters 160D and 153A.
“While the new law does not make major policy changes or shifts in the scope of authority granted to local governments,” according the UNC School of Government, “it does provide many clarifying amendments and consensus reforms that will need to be incorporated into local development regulations.”
The town had until July 1, 2021, to adopt UDO amendments.
“Basically, a lot of this is required,” said Town Planner Jack Meadows, who compiled and presented the proposed amendments to the board. “There’s not a lot of choice involved by the local communities.”
But town staff capitalized on the opportunity to introduce some nonessential changes, as well, all of which the board voted to adopt.
Among the noteworthy updates:
• Lots divided by district lines
Previous versions of the UDO were ambiguous as to how a plot of land should be categorized when it falls within two or more zoning districts.
“This is something that’s not really clear in our ordinance right now,” Meadows said. “This is a clarifying piece.”
The new UDO specifies that for lots of two acres or smaller, “the district regulations applicable to the district within which the larger portion of the lot lies shall apply to the entire lot.”
Lots greater than two acres in size will have their constituent parts subject to the zoning regulation of the district within which it falls.
• Performance guarantees
The amended UDO includes modified instructions outlining the process by which town representatives authorize use or occupancy of a building before completion of development. It assigns more authority to town staff than previous ordinance allowed.
“The bottom line,” Meadows said, “is staff is going to handle the administrative part of performance guarantees.”
Final approval will still fall to the board of commissioners for performance guarantee requests that accompany certain development projects such as those requiring special use permits and conditional zoning.
• Expiration of permits
All development permits will expire one year after the date of issuance if work “has not been substantially commenced,” according to the revised UDO.
“Right now we have a couple of scenarios,” Meadows said, “zoning permits are six months, special use permits are two years ... But we’re saying from now on, all permits ... are one year permits.”
• Penalties and remedies for violations
“This is the important section,” Meadows said.
Violations of development regulation “including violations of any conditions and safeguards established in connection with any development approval,” will subject offenders to monetary penalty.
In the past, offenders who did not pay within 10 days “of receipt” of their citation, were fined $100.
Now, the $100 charge will be issued after 10 days from when the violation letter was issued.
“So, we’re just changing when it starts,” Meadows said. “The clock starts at the date of the letter, rather than receipt.”
• Conditional zoning
Instead of conditional use district rezoning, a process which heavily involved the board of commissioners, town staff will now preside over conditional zoning requests for development approval.
The new ordinance requires developers to meet with a review team before submitting a formal application to “minimize development planning costs” and “avoid misunderstanding or misinterpretation.”
“It’s very similar (to before),” Meadows said, “it’s just it’s a legislative decision rather than a quasi-judicial.”
The full 212-page document listing amendments to Siler City’s UDO is available on the town’s website here: http://www.silercity.org/vertical/sites/%7B3856B9B8-1C42-483B-A4CB-C0D6B1FE7142%7D/uploads/Schedule_G_UDO_160D.pdf
Siler City’s board of commissioners has long considered updates to the town’s city hall.
On Tuesday, Taylor Hobbs of Hobbs Architects — which has been contracted to manage the site’s improvement project — presented a bid summary from Ellington Construction to perform substantial renovation.
The base bid would cost $663,000 with an extra $162,280 in alternates.
Many of the updates will be to address ADA recommendations, to meet required adjustments to the building’s elevator and to fix water leakage in the basement and some offices. Heating and air conditioning systems will be replaced, as well.
The board elected to table further discussion until its next meeting on Feb. 1 when town staff will return with more details.
Siler City’s police department is understaffed.
“Here recently, we’ve been in conversation about how to approach some form of recruitment for sworn staff at the police department,” said Town Manager Roy Lynch, “due to the ongoing vacancies that we’ve had.”
There are currently five open positions including a detective and sergeant.
“Thinking from a marketing mindset,” said Human Resources Director Nancy Darden, “we feel like ... word of mouth is the most productive method of advertisement that we have.”
To quicken the hiring process, Darden suggested a program by which officers would earn incentives for recruiting new department staff.
“If we have a sworn person who recommends someone for one of these positions,” she said, “we get their application in, we go through the interview, background check and all those aspects, they come on board and complete their field training program and they are still with us through all that, then the person who recruited them would get a $1,000 bonus.”
The board was impressed with town staff’s creative problem solving and voted to approve the recruitment program. It will run through June 30 or until all department vacancies have been filled, whichever comes first.
Reporter D. Lars Dolder can be reached at dldolder@chathamnr.com and on Twitter @dldolder.