City Council

TOWN OF WENTWORTH MINUTES OF THE TOWN COUNCIL MEETING WENTWORTH, NORTH CAROLINA May 7, 2024 7:00 p.m. The regular monthly meeting of the Wentworth Town Council was held on Tuesday, May 7th, 2024 at the Wentworth Town Hall at 7:00 p.m. Council Members Present: Mayor Dennis Paschal Jr., Mayor Pro Tem Evelyn Conner, Daryl Crowder, Cheryl Moore, Dennis Paschal III Council Members Absent: A quorum was met. Staff Present: Yvonne Russell, Town Clerk/ Finance Officer Hunter Wilson, Accounting Clerk/ Deputy Clerk Others Present: Ellis Martin, Town Attorney Jesse Day, Piedmont Triad Regional Council Lynn Cochran, Planner Article I. CALL TO ORDER Mayor Dennis Paschal Jr. called the meeting to order. Article II. INVOCATION Councilmember Dennis Paschal III gave the invocation. Article III. APPROVAL OF TOWN COUNCIL AGENDA A. Requests and Petitions of Citizens There were no Requests or Petitions of Citizens. B. Approve/Amend Agenda Mayor Paschal made a MOTION, “To approve the agenda as written.” Mayor Pro Tem Evelyn Conner seconded the motion. All voted in favor and the motion carried. Town of Wentworth Council Meeting Minutes – May 7, 2024 Page 1 of 7 Article IV. APPROVAL OF MINUTES A. Town Council Meeting 1. April 2, 2024 Councilmember Paschal made a MOTION, “The minutes stand approved as written.” Councilmember Cheryl Moore seconded the motion. All voted in favor and the motion carried. Article V. OLD BUSINESS There was no Old Business. Article VI. NEW BUSINESS A. Discussion of Proposed Text Amendments to the Wentworth Planning & Zoning Ordinances - by Jesse Day Mr. Day addressed Council, “I made these changes two months ago so I’m trying to remember all that was changed. In all honesty it’s pretty straight forward information that you provided to Lynn and myself in terms of the changes that were required. In summary, I am happy to walk through it in as much detail as possible. I have put together a document that highlights every single amendment to the ordinances that Ms. Russell can pull up on the screen if necessary.” Mr. Day continued, “The long and short of it is, to kind of cover things, was cleaning up the 160-D changes that were required from a couple of years ago that weren’t completely there, so we made some of those changes. Obviously getting back to some of the Special Uses and updating those as well as being clear on who’s responsible for those changes as we walk through…you know, the Planning Board being responsible versus the Town Council. So at the pleasure of the Council, how detailed do you want us to walk through it or do we want to just highlight the bigger changes?” Mayor Paschal replied, “Well, the reason we took so long was so we could have time to go through it because it was a lot of changes. I think everybody has been through it, so however you would like to do it. We’re familiar with the changes.” Mr. Day said, “Let’s take a look at the Permitted Uses Table. I want to highlight the bigger changes and then have any further discussion or questions about that. We’ve cleaned up some definitions. If we go to the Table of Permitted Uses which begins on page 9 of Chapter 2, we basically looked at combining some of the Automobile and Racetrack/Dragstrip uses into one category. We also took out Hazardous Waste and Toxic Waste Facilities from even being possible to be located in Wentworth, so that was removed from the Permitted Use Table. We took out Landfill, Municipal Solid Waste from Wentworth. There’s other areas of the County that could locate those. We cleaned up some language around mobile homes and brought it up to standards with ‘Manufactured Homes’.” Town of Wentworth Council Meeting Minutes – May 7, 2024 Page 2 of 7  Mr. Day continued, “We looked at allowing that as a Special Use Permit decided by the Planning Board in Residential Agriculture and Residential Mixed districts, but not in Residential Protected. So that would not be allowed as a Special Use Permit in those locations as a temporary use for a residence. Also, Planning Board decides for Nursery Retail Sales in Community Shopping District…and then Planning Board for Nursing and Rest Homes. We combined Radio and Television Tower into a more modern language around Telecommunications. There’s some other small clean ups in terms of decisions… Service Stations as a Special Use in Community Shopping decided by the Planning Board, or use by right of course in Highway Commercial 2 and Light Industrial. Planning Board approves Skeet/Trap and Sport and Clay Ranges in the Residential Agriculture area of the town. We added Tourist Home as approved by the Planning Board. Those are some of the more kind of subjective decisions for the Town to make. A lot of the other changes in all honesty are just cleaning up what was required from 160-D, so not a lot of discretion per say on the Town in terms of those changes…how the Board of Adjustment must operate and the conflict of interest statements and all that stuff that was put in the rest of the ordinance.” Yvonne Russell, Town Clerk added, “We labeled all of the Special Uses as either Minor or Major where they weren’t labeled before.” Mr. Day said, “I think there were some issues around Board of Adjustment making the decisions, so we cleaned that up to be more of whether the Town Council or the Planning Board would make those decisions. We had a conflict with Planning Director language being in there and we changed that to Zoning Administrator to be more universal since you don’t really have a full time Planning Director.” Mr. Day concluded, “So those were some changes in general for the Special Uses section. Again, as to not get tedious, I’m happy to walk through some of those changes again but I think that’s mostly clean up, but I’m happy to answer any questions you have. Lynn and Yvonne, I think, have covered it in a lot of detail. I think functionally your ordinance works very well for a small town. I’ve definitely seen some other small towns with much more outdated ordinances and so I think this was modest change to get up to where you want to be today in 2024.” Mayor Paschal said, “We took a little extra time to look over it so we’d be sure and look at all of them… Some of the stuff had gotten switched around during that 160-D change, so some of that we changed back to what it was.” Mr. Day replied, “Yes hopefully that will work better for you going forward. One thought, just in general as you think about in maybe the next two to three years in other ordinance changes, the opportunity to go to conditional zoning potentially instead of a rezoning and then a special use permit is a strategy that communities use so it’s sort of ‘one stop shop’…you’re able to talk about those conditions in one rezoning versus rezoning to a new category and then doing the special use permit on top of it.” He added, “But if you’re having just a handful of special use permits in a year, then it may not be worth the effort to go through that at this point.” Councilmember Paschal said, “I have one question about something in Chapter 2 on page 11. ‘Manufactured Homes for Temporary Use as Residence’ and that definition of manufactured home. What is that?” Town of Wentworth Council Meeting Minutes – May 7, 2024 Page 3 of 7  Mr. Day answered, “It should be linked back to the definition in the previous chapter. Do you mean in terms of the different letters, A and B?” Councilmember Paschal replied, “No, I guess I just really want some clarification on what constitutes a manufactured home, and what would we be looking at for a temporary use of a manufactured home.” Mr. Day asked Lynn Cochran to help him answer that question. Mr. Cochran explained, “The general intent for a temporary manufactured home was a temporary permit that someone could get during a period of construction of a single family residence that had been allowed in all of the residential districts. I believe the Council would like to remove that from the RP district, if I’m not mistaken. That was just discussed last week.” He continued, “The manufactured home definition itself is a home that is constructed to and built to Housing of Urban Development Code Standards versus North Carolina Residential Code Standards. It’s a different set; that’s the difference between a modular and a manufactured home. They all look the same, they come in sections, but they’re built differently…if it’s a double-wide type thing. With modulars, you’re not going to see one that looks like a single-wide. This in the ordinance is about a single section manufactured home as a temporary use.” Mr. Cochran clarified that does not include recreational vehicles (RV’s). Ms. Russell pointed out, “On page 48 in Chapter 2 the description of it says permits granted only for health related reasons which justify a hardship consideration for the occupant.” Mr. Cochran looked at the description with Ms. Russell and said, “I believe that is to be a special use for a custodial arrangement. Let’s say Mom…we get a physician’s letter stating that she needs assistance with the activities of daily living, meals, medications, etc. If you get an affidavit signed by the property owner acknowledging the terms of the permit, they can place a manufactured home on the same lot with the principle residential structure and when the need for the custodial care ends, the manufactured home must be removed. I believe that is what that one is referring to.” Mayor Paschal asked, “So the one that addresses RV’s isn’t in there?” Mr. Cochran replied, “No, it is only for a manufactured home.” Ms. Russell said, “In the Wentworth ordinance, according to the Table of Permitted Uses, a manufactured home for a temporary use for construction purposes is not allowed in residential areas.” Mr. Cochran said, “That is actually meant for (inaudible) and then maybe a temporary residence on a commercial construction site separate from something that would be a modular construction office unit.” Mayor Paschal asked, “But which one addresses an RV for construction use?” Mr. Cochran replied, “There is no permission for RVs.” Councilmember Paschal said, “An RV wouldn’t be a possibility.” Mr. Cochran clarified, “Under the current rules the only place someone can have an RV in Wentworth is in an approved travel trailer park.” Ms. Russell asked, “So we don’t have something in our ordinance that allows for a temporary manufactured home on a lot while you’re building a house?” Town of Wentworth Council Meeting Minutes – May 7, 2024 Page 4 of 7  Mr. Day said, “Right.” Mr. Cochran asked, “Is that what you’re reading?” Mr. Day replied, “That’s the way I read it.” Ms. Russell said, “I just want to make clear what this ordinance says it’s allowing for a temporary manufactured home, it’s just for the medical issue.” Mr. Cochran said, “It’s only for the custodial medical care need type situation.” He added, “I think you’re right now that I’m thinking through what I’ve seen in the permitted use table. I don’t think there is a permit for a manufactured home during a period of construction. It’s only for custodial care.” Mayor Paschal asked for clarification that a temporary manufactured home, Class A and Class B, was removed from the permitted uses. Mr. Day said, “Right, as I understand it we took it out just for RP, but it’s still allowed in RA and RM.” Mayor Paschal said, “Right. We took it out of RP.” Mr. Cochran said, “So essentially there would be no permissible use of a manufactured home in RP. No double-wide special use permit and no temporary manufactured home. Only single family site built homes and modular homes in RP.” There were no further questions. Mayor Paschal made a MOTION, “To send the proposed text amendments to the Wentworth Planning Board.” Councilmember Paschal seconded the motion. All voted in favor and the motion carried. (Note: The proposed text amendments are included as an attachment to these minutes.) Article VI. NEW BUSINESS B. Presentation of Proposed Budget for Fiscal Year 2024 – 2025 by Yvonne Russell, Town Clerk & Finance Officer Ms. Russell reviewed some highlights of the Budget Message for Fiscal Year 2024 – 2025. Mayor Paschal noted the proposed budget is available for public inspection in the Town Clerk’s Office, and made a MOTION, “To set the public hearing to adopt the budget for June 4, 2024 at our regularly scheduled Town Council meeting.” Mayor Pro Tem Conner and Councilmember Paschal seconded the motion. All voted in favor and the motion carried. Article VII. PUBLIC COMMENTS There were no public comments. Town of Wentworth Council Meeting Minutes – May 7, 2024 Page 5 of 7 Article VIII. ANNOUNCEMENTS Mayor Paschal gave the following announcements:  The next regular meeting of the Wentworth Planning Board is scheduled for Tuesday, May 21, 2024, at 7:00 pm at the Wentworth Town Hall.  The next regular meeting of the Wentworth Town Council is scheduled for Tuesday, June 4, 2024, at 7:00 pm at the Wentworth Town Hall.  The Wentworth Town Hall will be closed Monday, May 27, 2024 in observance of Memorial Day. Article X. ADJOURN Mayor Paschal made a MOTION, “To adjourn.” Councilmember Crowder seconded the motion. All voted in favor and the motion carried. Respectfully Submitted by: _____________________________ Yvonne Russell, Town Clerk Approved by: _____________________________ Robert Dennis Paschal, Jr., Mayor Town of Wentworth Council Meeting Minutes – May 7, 2024 Page 6 of 7 ATTACHMENT: Proposed Text Amendments to the Wentworth Planning & Zoning Ordinances Town of Wentworth Council Meeting Minutes – May 7, 2024 Page 7 of 7