Fairmont City Council passes 10 ordinances, modernizes aspects of zoning regulations
Mar. 1—FAIRMONT — A big part of Fairmont's planning department is keeping the city's code up to date.
Tuesday night, Fairmont City Council passed 10 ordinances, nine of which are aimed at updating aspects of the city's planning and zoning code to modernize standards and clarify definitions.
Fairmont Planning Director Shae Strait said the changes weren't part of a larger plan, but are a piece of his department's comprehensive plan that lays out a desire to update and maintain the code using modern standards.
"Many of these [codes] were ambiguous or antiquated so we wanted to modernize several things," Strait said. "We clarified a lot of things and streamlined others that we think will be better for everyone in the end."
The first five ordinances on the agenda relocated all zoning related fees to one section and modernized several permit fees, including signage fees, planning and development fees and filing fees.
The change updates some of the fees to better match modern prices and also consolidates all fees to a single section of the code that makes the code, as a whole, easier to understand.
The seventh ordinance updated definitions relating to garden walls and fencing. This change deregulated the code's restrictions on walls and fencing to better reflect what is already present in many neighborhoods.
This ordinance acted in conjunction with the ninth ordinance which adds standards and requirements to the definitions added in the previous ordinance.
The eighth ordinance repealed the city's parking standards with new, modern requirements. The hope is that the change will ease standards on single-family housing and allow owners of single-family houses to install driveways for off-street parking.
The ordinance also updated parking requirements across all land uses. The change will be reflected on the city's virtual land use maps and charts.
"This will make it very clear what your requirements are," Strait said. "The old parking code was basically a model ordinance from the late 80s or early 90s so we wanted to bring that up to date."
The final ordinance removed a requirement that was unique to single-family homes which required trash collection bins and mechanical equipment to be placed five feet back from the property line.
Mechanical equipment in this context refers mostly to ground-mounted HVAC units and single-family dwellings were the only land use with this restriction and the planning department, planning commission and city council felt it unfairly targeted single-family homes.
The council members didn't have many questions throughout the hearings for the ordinances, but according to Council member Gia Deasey, that was because the council came prepared.
"We asked a million questions about these already and everybody is really well informed. I didn't want anyone to interpret out silence as disregard," Deasey said. "We had most of our questions answered at our work session."
All 10 ordinances passed unanimously.
Other business:
* Council received an update from the Marion County Public Library System and its work in the community.
* Mark Staples from Mt. Zion Baptist Church presented to council about his church's work on the former Mt. Zion building on Cleveland Avenue.
* Council made two appointments to the Human Rights Commission.
The council's next meeting will be Tuesday, March 14 at 7 p.m. in the Public Safety Building on Quincy Street.
Reach David Kirk at 304-367-2522 or by email at dkirk@timeswv.com.
