The Town of Hamlet is finally making progress on updating its zoning map. Last September, the town council agreed to hire Lee Nagai to help with the process. During this month’s zoning board meeting, Nagai presented a presented a preliminary map of every parcel in town.
“That’s the parcel data, parcel-by-parcel, so you can decide exactly where you want your zoning boundaries to be,” Nagai explained. “You can decide if you want it to go between two parcels, if you want to even split a parcel and say, okay, the back is going to be this and the front will be this, if it’s a business district or something, whatever.” Nagai said that so far, he has the data from the original description of the town, but he still needed to find annexation ordinances, to reflect the current official town limits.
Board President Dave Kesvormas said his main concern with the zoning map is to make sure it reflects how the land is actually being used. “I think it has to make sense,” he said. “Everything should be, at some point, R-1, and then obviously, our downtown has obviously changed because the bank is no longer there. We’ve got some other areas, like down by Charlie’s place, his shop. The café is now a house.”
Zoning updates were also suggested in the comprehensive plan adopted by the town last year, as a way to guide future development.
