Put off zoning vote
The Morgan County Planning Commission and the Zoning Subcommittee did a fine job of putting together a zoning ordinance in a matter of months at the direction of the Morgan County Commission.
But the clock is ticking, and we don’t think the public is well-served by the rush to get the proposed ordinance on November’s General Election ballot.
Seems to us that before an ordinance is considered finished, it should be discussed and debated all over the county. Since the county commissioners have just over a month to put the proposal on the ballot, there isn’t time to properly promote and conduct a real series of public meetings and then revise the document.
Areas like southern and eastern Morgan County have seen the most development pressure, yet no public hearing has been scheduled for Pleasant View, Greenwood or the Cacapon State Park vicinity. A single public hearing on Thursday, July 1, at Warm Springs Middle School will have to suffice for those folks. We fear that rather than learning about the details for their areas, they will be subjected to emotional speeches from zoning supporters and opponents.
More baffling is a public hearing on Friday afternoon, July 2, in Paw Paw, a town not even covered by the zoning ordinance. That session is on the Friday of a holiday weekend. It feels like they’re just going through the motions.
Of course, this schedule came about because officials are up against a tough timetable. They have promised one more public hearing after they revise the ordinance based on the first two, but that meeting will be perfunctory because there won’t be any time left for further revisions.
Since all this is taking place during the summer, it’s a safe bet that most people won’t zero in on the pro’s and con’s of zoning until the fall campaign. At that point, those for and against it will only have a few pressure cooker weeks to make their points.
If zoning passes, it will become county law and affect the uses of many properties in the future. If it fails, the notion of countywide zoning will probably be dead for another 10 or 15 years, as happened after the 1990s zoning effort collapsed. Surely, it makes sense not to rush into anything.
It’s not as if there’s a lot of development or industrial pressure on Morgan County right now. Many people would be happy to see something happening and, rightly or wrongly, they may perceive zoning as slowing down economic recovery.
We urge the county commissioners to allow the time for the zoning ordinance to be really debated and revised, and give citizens the time to understand exactly what they are voting on.
Delaying the zoning vote until the May, 2012 elections is the prudent thing to do.
