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Hurricane council declines consultant agreement to draft downtown zoning overlay
Summary
Hurricane City Council voted to deny a proposed agreement with Downtown Redevelopment Services LLC to prepare a zoning overlay for the city's downtown master plan after a sustained discussion about traffic, use of city land and whether the council can develop a design theme without an outside consultant.
Hurricane City Council voted to deny an agreement with Downtown Redevelopment Services LLC to prepare a zoning overlay for the downtown master plan.
City staff had proposed continuing the contract with the same consultant that prepared the downtown master plan to create an overlay district intended to guide redevelopment of roughly a 12-block area centered on State Street. Staff said the work would include defining a character district, a vacant-property ordinance and a façade program; staff also reported a not-to-exceed figure of $23,000 and said the amount had been budgeted for the current fiscal year.
Councilmembers raised traffic and land-use concerns during more than a half-hour of discussion. Several councilmembers questioned whether bringing more activity downtown would worsen congestion along State Street, which they said now carries heavy through traffic. Others expressed concern about using a city-owned parcel identified as a catalyst site for private development rather than keeping it as open recreational space or a public gathering place.
Several councilmembers and staff discussed alternatives to hiring the consultant, including revising the municipal code so that development in a designated downtown zone would require a conditional-use permit (CUP) focused on aesthetics and design standards and routing those permits directly to the city council for review rather than to the planning commission. Multiple speakers said a local design theme could be established by the council with sample building examples rather than by paying an outside firm to develop detailed design guidelines.
After discussion, a motion to deny the agreement with Downtown Redevelopment Services LLC was made and approved by the council. Councilmembers directed staff to draft ordinance language that would require aesthetic review for projects in a designated downtown area (via a CUP or equivalent) and to return with proposed language and example design standards for council consideration.
The council's action does not adopt a final downtown zoning overlay; rather, it rejects this consultant agreement and asks staff to pursue municipal-code changes and internal design guidance. Staff said that, if the council prefers, city staff can draft CUP language and bring examples of preferred building types and themes back to the council for direction.
