SNOW HILL – The Worcester County Planning Commission has provided favorable recommendations to two rezoning requests in northern Worcester County.
The commission last week agreed to forward a Route 611 rezoning request and another St. Martin’s Neck Road request on to the Worcester County Commissioners with favorable recommendations.
On Route 611, property owners are seeking to have 1.74 acres of A-2 agricultural property rezoned to C-2 general commercial. According to attorney Mark Cropper, the rezoning is being sought on the basis that a mistake was made when the property was given the A-2 designation in 2009. Despite its current classification the property, which is home to Sun Signs, has been used commercially since the owners purchased it.
“That use on the property has never changed. It’s always been a commercially used and commercially zoned property since 1988…,” Cropper said. “By virtue of that property now being zoned agricultural your use on that property has now turned to a nonconforming use.”
Cropper said it wasn’t fair that the owners should be burdened with the limitations and restrictions associated with a nonconforming use.
“This property is not being rezoned in order to be developed for commercial purposes,” he said. “This property is being rezoned to be consistent with its commercial use that’s been in place for 32 years.”
Commission members agreed with Cropper’s assertions.
“I think it’s a mistake,” commission member Mike Diffendal said.
After voting unanimously in support of the rezoning, the commission went on to give another favorable recommendation to a rezoning in Bishopville. Cropper, representing the property owner, said the request was to rezone as agricultural 2.88 acres on the south side of St. Martin’s Neck Road. The land is currently zoned E-1 estate. Cropper said that the estate district, which the comprehensive plan proposed eliminating, was being incrementally changed until the county’s next comprehensive rezoning.
“This is a downzoning,” Cropper said of the proposal to go from E-1 to A-2. “We’re asking to go from a residential zoning classification to an agricultural classification which I believe to be more in keeping with the surrounding area.”
Both rezoning requests will be forwarded to the county commissioners for consideration.
