Whiteville staff report development uptick, request funding for land-use update and fire inspector

Planning and public-safety staff updated Whiteville council on development activity and department budget needs during a recent meeting, saying permit revenue this fiscal year has already exceeded the prior year and outlining requests for a land-use plan update, zoning code work, asbestos abatement and a new full-time fire inspector.

Planning department staff said the department has collected about $17,700 so far this fiscal year, surpassing last year’s total of about $16,654. “We’ve already exceeded that in April and moving forward to June,” planning staff said.

The planning staff reported a rise in residential construction activity and several pending commercial and multifamily projects. Staff identified a proposed roughly 64-unit multifamily complex and said applications are under review for national retailers, mentioning Five Below and a Starbucks location. Columbus Motors was cited as the location for one retail proposal; details such as final approvals and construction schedules were not specified in the meeting.

As part of the department’s budget request, staff said they have included $60,000 in year two of the proposed budget for a land-use plan update and additional funding for zoning-code provisions. The staff presentation also referenced an older demolition/repair plan that staff characterized as nearly a decade out of date and in need of revision. Costs for asbestos removal tied to redevelopment were discussed but not specified; planning staff said contractors would need to be hired to remove asbestos in some cases.

Fire Marshal issues and staffing needs were presented separately. The fire marshal said state inspection mandates and increased training requirements have raised workload, and requested a full-time fire inspector position to meet inspection cycles the office must maintain. “We are required to conduct so many inspections every 3 years, every 1 year, twice a year depending on the occupancy,” the fire marshal said, and added that the city could be billed by the state if inspections are not completed on schedule.

The fire marshal described a transition to new software, ImageTrend, to manage digital plan reviews, inspections and fire investigations. Staff said they had begun uploading commercial water- and health-related accounts into the system to build a starting database and that the new software should speed review and tracking compared with current manual workflows.

Public-safety technology proposals were mentioned in the presentation. The fire marshal and staff discussed license-plate-reader cameras and other sensors already in use and said they are evaluating expansion. They also described a proposed drone program that staff estimated would require about a $50,000 initial investment with roughly $10,000 per year in maintenance; staff said the dispatch center would be able to deploy drones to incident scenes but did not provide an implementation timeline.

Staff also presented permit-fee figures and said the department budgeted roughly $223,000 this year related to fees. The meeting included discussion of printer and plan-handling costs, turnaround-time expectations for plan review, and the need for updated equipment to handle digital plan files more efficiently; where exact dollar amounts were unclear in the dialogue, staff comments were reported as presented.

No formal council vote or ordinance adoption on the items discussed was recorded in the transcript. Participants said that ordinance changes and further council involvement would be necessary for some measures, and staff indicated they would return with more detailed proposals and cost estimates as part of the budget and ordinance-change process.

Ending — Next steps Staff requested that the council consider the proposed budget items as part of the city’s budget process and signaled they would provide further information on costs and any needed ordinance changes. Specific amounts for asbestos abatement, a timeline for the drone program and a formal hiring action for the requested inspector were not decided during the meeting.