City moves to alleviate rezoning-hearing gridlock

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Faced with rezoning meetings that often run past midnight, the Charlotte City Council has taken a proactive step to avoid a marathon session of public hearings at its Dec. 14 meeting.

The city staff alerted the council this week that 20 to 25 rezoning hearings were slated for the joint business and zoning meeting that day. Zoning meetings can drag on for hours, with councilmembers voting on rezoning requests before focusing their attention on frontage, roof pitch, and right-of-way proposals. Public comments, both in favor and against, follow.

Fearing council members would require NoDoz and toothbrushes for the end-of-year confab, the staff identified two possible action plans. As the Nov. 16 zoning meeting is currently slated for council decisions only, why not move some of the Dec. 14 public hearings that face little opposition to that date? With this being an election year, council could adhere to past policy of not holding hearings for petitions on which new council members might vote. But, the staff said, there is no legal reason to follow that route.

Next, the staff recommended scheduling a 10 p.m. “hard stop” to the Dec. 14 meeting already slated to start two hours early at 4 p.m. Any remaining hearings could be taken up at a specially-scheduled overflow session beginning at the same time the following Thursday. Hearings with the greatest level of community interest would be slated for the top of the Dec. 14 zoning agenda.

Results?

Hearings in November? Check.

Second meeting in December? Check

As for the New Year, the city’s planning department is speeding up processes so that attending a rezoning meeting no longer requires the stamina of an Olympian. Part of the problem, it says, is that the improved economy has sparked a wave of development that is causing an ever-increasing number of rezoning petitions to come up for review.

One idea is a revamp to the rezoning schedule that focuses on substantial issues with developers earlier in the process. Another option includes placing zoning decisions on a business meeting agenda.

The staff says it hopes to implement changes by January.