What started as a simple zoning request turned into a debate on the future of Highlands businesses off of Main Street at the regularly scheduled Highland Town of Commissioners board meeting Thursday night.
Highlands’ Bennett Williams recently put in a request to change his residence from B-3 Zoning to R-1, residential.
A public hearing was opened, and assistant planning director Michael Mathis started stating that Williams requested the change earlier this May.
“On May 13, a Petition for Rezoning was submitted to the Planning Department by Bennett Williams,” Mathis said. “The application is for his property at 1459 South 4th Street. The lot is .28 acres and located within the Balance Area of the Town’s Watershed. Currently, the subject property is zoned B-3 Commercial, but the building operates as a single-family dwelling. Mr. Williams is requesting that the property be rezoned to R-1 to fit the residential nature of the building.”
Mathis stated that the planning board reviewed the request and made the suggestion to approve the item, but commissioner Amy Patterson moved to deny the request.
“There have been some statements that this request is within our land use plan, and I don’t believe it is,” Patterson said. “A lot of the comments are actually in the 1998 language plan. The most recent language plan does not have that designation. Those changes were already made, and this property was not part of that language plan.”
Patterson said the language plan was made with the best interest of the future of the town.
“We don’t try and not consider the individual, but it has to be within the best interest for the town,” Patterson said. “It’s called B-3, but it’s actually a multi-use zone. It could be used as a multi family residence and a business, but if you make it R-1, the only thing it can be is a single-family residence. When you do that, it decreases our options and flexibility in the future. Right now, with the housing market in a boom, maybe single-family residence is the best use of that property, but in five years when the housing market may be flooded, the best use of that property might be to have a business there. If we make this change in the zoning, then we couldn’t do that anymore. I think that limits the potential businesses in our town.”
With half of the population coming in different seasons, Patterson said there has to be businesses in town that people will be willing to spend their money on when they are here.
“You can’t make the business be the bad guy just because they have to have some space in town,” Patterson said. “We need those businesses to actually fuel our economy. It doesn’t make sense for our yearlong residential citizens to go down the mountain to go and get a haircut, or get their dogs haircut, or get an insurance agent, or talk to a financial assistant, or have a chainsaw repaired, or have a chiropractor fix their back after they used their chainsaw. If we look at it like everything along a corner can’t be a business, then I think we are limiting ourselves not just now, but for the future. Our language plan is looking towards the future and that is why I don’t think this zoning request fits with our language plan.”
After hearing Patterson’s comments, commissioner Marc Hehn disagreed.
“I have worked in so many cities that had too much commercial land and not have a thriving downtown area,” Hehn said. “I think it is important that we have a thriving downtown area.”
Commissioner John Dotson stepped in stating that there are some businesses on Main Street that don’t have any business being on Main Street.
“In our town, there are certainly, from a real estate standpoint, Main Street rental prices are astronomical,” Dotson said. “There are many businesses in this town that could not afford Main Street even if they wanted to be there. So, I think, to take a potential zoned business property and convert it to R-1 is certainly restricting the future potential of that particular property because residential is allowed there.”
The motion to deny the request was carried 3-1 with Hehn voting against. Commissioner Donnie Calloway was absent.
By Christopher Smith