home

How should the entry way in to Oriental look?

The Town Board holds a public hearing tonight over a proposed “Overlay District” for Highway 55, that Broad Street business corridor running from the edge of town to North Street.

The proposal, which comes after months of work by the Planning Board, part of which is actually four years in the making) would require new buildings on Highway 55 to have porches across at least half the front of them, and landscaping. As part of a trade-off for those requirements, new buildings in that part of town could have flat roofs, something that the Growth Management Ordinance does not allow elsewhere in town.

Backers of the overlay plan say it will help the town have buildings on the main entrance to town that are more in keeping with the character of the village. Without the landscaping and porch requirements, overlay proponents say, the town could find itself with blocky square buildings, of the sort that franchises plop down in towns across the country.

The roots of the porch requirement go back four years to the fall of 2004 when the town set up a half dozen neighborhood groups to assess parts of town and make suggestions about future development there. The residents who considered the Broad Street corridor reported to the town that they noticed most businesses had a porch of some sort, and that that was something the town might consider requiring in the future.

That report came at a time when the first franchise — West Marine — built a square building on the edge of town, and when another franchise — Family Dollar — was said to be considering building nearby as well. It even sparked a petition drive against it. Around this time, the storage unit business on Broad Street expanded and a metal building with very little pitch on its roof went up closer to Highway 55. The owner agreed to landscape the property – but there was no standards of what that meant. This proposal puts standards in place.

One strain of thought that emerged from those times, then, was that while the town would not get into the business of stopping types of businesses, it could set standards for what the buildings looked like.

Enter, the concept of the Overlay District.

Planning Board Chairman Paul Olson, at a meeting this summer, said that while driving in other parts of the country, he has noticed franchise operations in other cities whose buildings were made to conform with a local standard. Olson supported the Overlay District requirement for porches in Oriental.

The idea has run in to some persistent resistance. One current business owner, Ed Bryant, who runs a storage unit operation on Broad Street, has lobbied the board to get rid of the ban on flat roofs, He opposes the trade-off of requiring porches.

At Town Board meetings in recent months, Mayor Bill Sage and Commissioner Candy Bohmert have repeatedly argued that the town should not be telling businesses that their buildings should have porches. Bohmert in particular has said it will hurt business and that no requirement is needed because people have tended to put porches on of their own volition.

Commissioner Kathy Kellam has been a supporter of setting a standard and not leaving it to chance. She has suggested that by requiring the porch and landscaping, the character of town is retained and is more likely to ensure that people would return to spend their money here. Amid the back and forth between herself and the opponents of the overlay, Kellam noted that it boiled down to a “philosophical difference” between those who say the town should not guide growth and those who, like herself, say that the town may set some standards.

The public has a chance to share its views at the Public Hearing Tuesday night.

It is not clear if there will be a vote on the matter at the meeting. Commissioner Kellam will not be able to attend the meeting. That could mean a tie vote among the remaining four board members. When that happens, the tie is broken by a vote from the Mayor, who in his case has strongly opposed the Overlay requirements.

Posted Tuesday October 7, 2008 by Melinda Penkava