Culver Town Council Adopts Zoning Ordinance Amendment

The Culver Town Council members reviewed the ordinance that amends the Culver Zoning Ordinance when they met last week.

In a previous story with information provided by The Pilot News Staff Writer Jamie Fleury, the ordinance was previously approved by a vote of 7-0 by members of the Plan Commission during their October meeting before coming to the council Wednesday, November 9.

The amendment impacted Chapter 3, 7 and 10.

The following changes have been adopted on first read:

Chapter 3 “Standard Zoning District Intent, Uses, & Standards, Section 030,R-1 Residential District. The following content has been added “For non-conforming lots of record, the minimum rear yard setback cannot be less than 10 feet.”

Chapter 7 “Site Development Plans”, Section 020, Authority Part B: Add an exemption for Demolitions with the following text addition to the exemption list: Demolitions. When the demolition does not result in the potential for an environmental hazard, imminent hazard or economic hardship.

Chapter 10 “Administration” Section 020, Notice of Public Hearing Part A: Change “in the Culver Citizen” to read “in local media sources such as the Pilot News.”

Culver Town Manager Ginny Bess Munroe explained that statute still requires newspaper notices, but the publication schedule of the Culver Citizen being limited to twice a month has created a hardship for the Plan Commission and Board of Zoning Appeals (BZA) to comply with advertising requirements and hold timely hearings. When they can accommodate the needed timeline, the Plan Commission and BZA will still publish in the Culver Citizen, but the authority to publish in the Pilot News will help them accommodate timely scheduling of hearings.

During their meeting last week, the Culver Town Council opened a public hearing on the ordinance amendment and there were no public comments.  The council then unanimously approved the second reading of the ordinance and then suspended the rules and approved the third and final reading of the ordinance, thus adopting the ordinance.