MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — A new effort to make changes to Monongalia County subdivision regulations is now ready for public comment.
The Monongalia County Planning Commission has begun to hear feedback on the new subdivision ordinance, which would include the provisions of eight different development classifications and the requirements it would take to start building them. The new subdivisions would account for developments that range from high-scale housing developments to mobile home parks and mixed-use properties. According to Monongalia County Commissioner Jeff Arnett, the ordinance will be presented in a public hearing within the next month.
“The Planning Commission is relaunching public comment and the release of everything in the middle of January,” said Arnett. “Everything is up on their website, so you can review the proposed ordinance and the different examples and videos that are there,” he said.
In the proposed ordinance, subdivisions are classified from Class I (triplexes, townhomes, etc.) to Class IV (agricultural residential) and have separate provisions for mobile home parks, commercial and industrial developments, along with mixed-use and planned unit developments. Each of the classifications includes increased requirements in regards to how much space is needed for each development, required drainage infrastructure, and added 30-month timelines for improvements with a 115 percent security, which would be held by the commission. While Arnett expects the new requirements to be costly for anyone looking to build in the county, he also expects them to weed out developers who either can’t afford such efforts or would abandon projects and then move on to the next one.
“One advantage of the massive increase in cost for building and development is that most of the time, the folks you get that are doing it now are doing it right,” said Arnett. “Your fly-by-night groups that put up three or four houses have kind of gone away,” he said.
The hope for both the Monongalia County Planning Commission and the Monongalia County Commission is to increase housing through responsible development as part of the ordinance. This is expected to be accomplished with explicit provisions in the ordinance that would also include limits on where industrial developments can occur in correspondence to residential developments and detailed plans that are subject to the planning commission’s approval. These requirements come from a combination of efforts from both local officials and federal regulations that are aimed at keeping Monongalia County growing responsibly.
“The last thing we want to do as a commission is to stifle development,” said Arnett. “We are incidentally one of two growing counties in the entire state, and we have a desperate need for housing,” he said.
Arnett has urged the public to participate in the comment period ahead of the January public hearing that’s slowly approaching. Despite being a vocal opponent of similar efforts in the past as a real estate attorney, Arnett also acknowledged that the new ordinance has improved requirements significantly and accounts for developments currently growing (Harmony Grove TIF, the Route 43 development home to the Med Express Corporate Offices). While he and other local officials have come out to support the proposed ordinance, they also want the public to give their input on a measure that could impact county development for decades.
“We’re moving in the right direction, and we certainly welcome input and a review of these regulations as much as people can,” Arnett said.
A complete copy of the ordinance, along with interactive videos, is available on the Monongalia Planning Commission’s website.