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Zoning enforcement raises hackles in Hamilton
It is not true that Hamilton is trying to run the local trailer home community out of town, Mayor Ray Whitbey said, or that town officials are being unfair in enforcement of its zoning ordinances.
The last thing the town wants to do, Whitbey said, is to drive away town residents and to reduce the supply of affordable housing.
That being said, the town's zoning ordinance has to be enforced, Whitbey said, even if it hasn't always been enforced in the past. Several tenants of the Hamilton Mobile Court are in limbo – and have appeared before the Town Council to complain – because the town's zoning rules does not allow them to replace their aging and dilapidated house trailers with new ones.
The trailer park was established before Hamilton had any zoning. The property is now zoned commercial, and the residences are considered a nonconforming use. A such, they can continue, since they pre-existed the zoning, but they cannot be replaced or improved.
Whitbey's neighbor, Robert Russell, appeared at the Sept. 8 Town Council meeting and spoke on behalf his children, who live in the Hamilton Mobil Court and who cannot replace their aging and dilapidated trailer home.
The town, he charged, is misreading its own zoning ordinance.
Whitbey commented later that the town has been working with Shirley Pearson, the owner of the trailer park, to work out a schedule of improvements spread over several years that would allow the residents to replace aging trailers. The first step is for Pearson to submit a site plan to the town, which she has not done.
Pearson rents the spaces to her tenants, who own their own trailers.
Overzealous enforcement charged
Whitbey and the council members fielded complaints from several citizens and business owners at the Sept. 8 meeting that the zoning ordinance is poorly worded, badly interpreted and aggressively enforced.
Business owner Georjann Overman said that since opening her bakery shop in March, she has encountered "an inordinate number of bizarre zoning regulations," including a violation for hanging an "open" sign outside her shop on Colonial Highway. Her neighbor in the building, Kenneth Wine – who was elected to council in May – was cited, she said, for hanging two flags instead of one. One of those was an American flag. Overman was then told, she said, that a sign in the window violates the health and safety standards of the ordinance. "Curtains are OK," she said, "but not a small sign."
Jacqueline Herd, who lives off West Colonial Highway, complained that she was never informed that the Board of Zoning Appeals met to consider her request for a variance for a fence, and never got a chance to make her case. She said later that she was in Africa at the time.
The BZA denied her appeal.
"It appears the Zoning Ordinance should be revised" to be more "user friendly" for both residents and business owners, Overman concluded.
A zoning review committee that includes Mayor Whitbey, Zoning Administrator David Beniamino, Councilman Wine and Planning Commission Chairman Bob McCann met in late August. It has not scheduled any more meetings.
Wine suggested enforcement of the regulations should wait until a complaint has been lodged. He likened patrolling the town to find violations to "a witch hunt."
Enforcement, he said, should be "complaint driven. This has always been a live-and-let-live town."
Overman's shop, said the mayor, is limited to retail use only – she can bring candies and baked goods in and sell them there, but can not produce them there without applying for a change in use. That would include submitting a site plan, and dealing with parking and storm water management.
Any work on the Zoning Ordinance – which was updated in spring 2007 – should probably wait until the town finishes its review of its comprehensive plan, Whitbey said. Both the zoning and subdivision ordinances grow out of the comprehensive plan.
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