The rezoning request to incorporate 83 townhomes within 14.15 acres on the back side of College Street was tabled during Blue Ridge City Council’s Tuesday, February 9, meeting.
When approving and amending the agenda, it was suggested to table the matter as the applicant, Johnny Hastings, had emailed requesting the vote be tabled until next month.
“I did speak with Mr. Balli (James, city attorney) today,” Councilwoman Rhonda Haight said urging to move forward with the vote. “There’s no reason to remove that. We need to move forward with voting on this so the people of this community will know what’s going on with that property.”
Councilman Mike Panter countered the argument with Hastings’ request.
“When does Mr. Hastings control our meetings?” Haight asked. “It appears to us that Mr. Hastings is wanting more time to try to persuade or convince or something. We allowed him to have one month.”
With that said, Haight moved to keep the item on the agenda.
Councilman Nathan Fitts recused himself from the vote, and the motion died for lack of second.
This is the second meeting that the council has tabled voting on the matter.
Planning, Zoning and Project Manager Jeff Stewart presented changes to the Zoning Ordinance that he and the Planning Commission recommended at the February 2 Planning Commission meeting, and they were approved.
Recommendations include changes to the Standards for Single-Family Homes: clarifying “utility meter” to “electrical meter,” change R-2 (Medium-Density Residential) and R-3 (High-Density Residential) minimum dwelling width from 12 feet to 24, change roof pitch for R-2 and R-3 from 2/12 to 4/12, and increase the minimum floor area of R-2 and R-3 from 432 square feet to 1,000.
He also suggested removing maximum lot coverage from Residential-Agriculture, R-1 (Low-Density Residential), R-2, R-3, C-1 (Limited Commercial) and C-2 (General Commercial) Districts, incorporating a minimum setback of 5 feet, decreasing the maximum height of buildings in the CBD (Central Business District) to 35 feet from 60, as well as adding short-term rentals to C-1, C-2, CBD and M1 (Manufacturing).
The Planning Commission meets at City Hall the first Tuesday of each month at 6 p.m. as needed.
Kelly Crowder was appointed the city clerk. She was to have began immediately with a starting salary of $15 an hour.
Judge Robert A. Snead was reappointed as the city’s Municipal Court judge, and Whitener pointed out that she had not realized until of late that the position is to be reappointed yearly.
Russell Black was appointed to a vacant seat on the Downtown Development Authority.
When discussing a fire truck, Panter suggested “getting the city out of the fire department business” in which the city would “transfer the truck that we own to the county.
“The City of Blue Ridge would make ... a dollar recommendations to the county, for say, a 10-year period, and then the city would also make a contribution to the county once a year ... basically over a 10-year period, it’s the same dollar amount that we’re currently spending, but we wouldn’t be dealing with maintenance, insurance, liability.”
Fitts asked Whitener why there was an agreement in the first place taxing city residents both city and county taxes for fire protection and questioned why, during Kevin Panter’s prior presentation on the fire department, did Kevin Panter act as if the city was not protected.
“The city does not get double taxed,” Whitener said. “You pay 40% of what your county tax is, and it doesn’t just go for fire protection. ... We do get the same protection that the county residents do, we just have it within a five-mile radius where now if we don’t have a truck it could be up on Suches, something in the downtown area catches fire, it could take a while to get to us.”
Haight suggested going through with the service agreement, giving the county the fire truck, offering a monthly stipend, but require for them to do a yearly inspection on all commercial properties and on new construction.
The council unanimously agreed to move forward with the proposal.
Blue Ridge Business Association President and Downtown Development Authority (DDA) Chairman Cesar Martinez was added to the agenda for public commentary.
Martinez asked for an update on the deck and wall along East Main Street.
“We talked with the gentleman that built the wall, and he’s waiting on the contractor that’s doing the concrete,” Whitener said. “They were hoping to start … this week if we didn’t have a lot of rain.”
The project began a whole year ago.
Martinez urged the importance of the city making a decision this year as to whether or not to allow events downtown again.
“Some of these people need to know what’s going on so they can make plans,” he said.
Martinez also invited council members to join the DDA for their March 1 meeting and endorsed a recommendation of Russell Black to the DDA.