Georgetown
City Council pauses rezoning requests
Georgetown City Council approved first reading of a temporary moratorium last week on zoning changes, variances and subdivisions greater than three lots as it reviews how its new unified development ordinance meshes with its comprehensive plan.
The vote was 4-3 at the City Council’s first meeting of the year, where Mayor Jay Doyle and Democrat City Council Members Sharon Melton, Jessie Walker and Hobson Henry Milton took their seats for the first time.
The council now has four Democrats and two Republicans.
The moratorium of up to 180 days will allow Doyle and council members to research and receive a “professional review” of the comprehensive plan to guide reviews of the UDO. City officials and staff will assess its impacts on land values, traffic, infrastructure and zoning uses.
The moratorium will automatically expire unless City Council votes to lift or extend it by another ordinance. The measure is due for the second of two required readings in February.
The moratorium does not apply to properties covered by existing development agreements and property owners who already have vested rights under state law.
The city adopted a new comprehensive plan and future land use maps in April. It adopted the unified development ordinance, or UDO, last month.
Last year, a rezoning and a variance request along the city waterfront drew opposition from residents. Both requests were withdrawn by the applicants. The moratorium drew opposition from residents as well.
Board of Zoning Appeals chairman Jimmy Cobb cited the state’s Local Government Comprehensive Planning Enabling Act of 1994 which grants the board the power to hear and grant variances, special exceptions, etc. Cobb said the code states that a property owner who submits a complete variance request has the right to have it accepted and heard within a certain time frame.
“The moratorium, that you’re proposing, cannot supersede state law in preventing its only administrator from accepting and the board from hearing those applications,” he said. “You’re denying your citizens the right to have their applications heard in a reasonable period of time.”
Jonathan Angner, a former City Council member who lost his re-election bid in November, said he would be “remiss” if he didn’t speak on the moratorium.
He said he received more than 250 emails, voicemails and comments online about the matter.
Angner said the ordinance was initially a building moratorium to give the city time to study the electrical and water infrastructure and zoning annexation.
“I think, because of public backlash, there was a pivot,” he said.
Angner said the studies “are already in hand,” and the pause is merely a distraction.
“That’s nothing more than a smokescreen, perhaps, that we want to buy time to learn how to do the job. The job’s not easy, it’s going to take dedication,” he said. “These are going to become what the decision’s based on in the city.”
Council Members Bruce Carl, Erin Ethridge and Tamika Williams-Obeng were in the minority voting against the measure.
Prior to the vote, Williams-Obeng asked to have more time for members to discuss the moratorium in detail.
“It still needs to be here. I just feel that we have a lot of community interest in this topic. I think that it’s worth us just discussing a little bit more in detail, not that I’m against it,” she said. “I’m not sure if all council members are aware of the details of what we’re looking at.”
Williams-Obeng made a motion to postpone the moratorium.
She did not receive a second.
“I don’t know that this is the right task forward for the city of Georgetown,” Carl said. That was met by applause and “amen’s” from the audience that filled the municipal courtroom.
He said his main concerns were how the moratorium will appear to developers and those who are trying to bring business into the community, staffing concerns and stalling the city’s momentum.
“Respectfully, I think it moves us backwards more than it moves us forward,” Carl said.
Doyle said he has been in conversation with other mayors that have undertaken similar ordinances, who have encouraged him to proceed with the moratorium in order to get the UDO and comprehensive plan to a “better state.”
“I haven’t taken this concept lightly,” Doyle said.
Correction: This article was updated from the print version to note that the measure received the first of two required readings.
