The Hamlet Town Council is moving ahead with updates to the town’s zoning map. The idea was first raised during this month’s zoning board meeting, when town officials noticed that the 2005 zoning map didn’t reflect the way much of the land is actually being used, with several homes being zoned for local business. The map also leaves off the storage facility north of U.S. 30 that has been annexed into the town.
At last week’s council meeting, Engineer Lee Nagai offered to do the necessary updates for about $2,500. “If you guys want a good zoning map, which I think you need, you’ve got to take the description for the town limits – what we would do is we’d take that, draw it out, superimpose that over an aerial so you can see where everything is,” he explained. “Then you guys can sit down and say, ‘Okay, here’s where we’re going to put our zones, our R-1, R-2, Commercial, Business, whatever.'”
Council Member Brian Earnest noted that the update is called for in the town’s preliminary comprehensive plan, but he wasn’t sure if the work done by HWC Engineering would be enough to be an official zoning map.
The draft plan also suggests annexing more land into the town limits, as a way to help control future development. But Nagai warned that could require the town to extend utility services, something Council President Dave Kesvormas said residents were not necessarily in favor of when the idea has come up in the past. “You add sewers, it increases the value of their home,” Kesvormas said. “But on the back end of it, that’s a huge cost for not only us, but that’s a huge cost for them on, let’s say, somebody just put a septic tank in a year or two ago and spent $10,000 or $15,000 on a septic system that would be rendered useless.”
On the other hand, Nagai pointed out that if the town wants growth, it has to provide sewer and water utilities.
Kesvormas said the town could seek quotes for the zoning map, but he wanted to get going with the process since the development of a proposed storage facility in town depends on it. He also noted that Nagai is local.
