OCEAN CITY — Updating the town’s zoning map to reflect the public-government zoning designation for properties owned or acquired by the town in recent years was the subject of an ordinance review this week.
The zoning map amendment proposed to update the designation of properties around Ocean City that are owned by the town, state or federal government and have some governmental use. Last month, the planning commission held the requisite public hearing on the zoning map amendment and forwarded its findings of fact and a favorable recommendation to the Mayor and Council to reflect the change.
Over the years, the town has owned parcels with an intended governmental use or acquired other properties that will have an intended government use in the future. An example is a parcel at 67th Street where a gym was located but has since been acquired by the town for use as part of a new water treatment plant. There are similar examples throughout town.
The town’s zoning map includes a public-government designation, or P/G-1, which is applied to those such properties. However, it has been determined many of those properties have not been changed to the P/G-1 zone and the amendment presented on Monday to the Mayor and Council would update the zoning map to reflect the changes.
Essentially, the zoning map amendment would add some properties from the P/G-1 designation, while removing others. Examples of town-owned properties that would be added to the P/G-1 zone include the Ocean City Lifesaving Station Museum annex at South Baltimore Avenue, the beach patrol headquarters at Talbot Street and the town’s new public works complex and Boardwalk tram depot at St. Louis Avenue.
Examples of parcels that would be removed from the existing P/G-1 designation include a portion of the Ocean City Development Corporation Model Block at Somerset Street, a Public Works Department surplus property at Judlee Avenue, a former water tank site at 66th Street and the 100th Street parking lot.
Planning and Community Development Director Bill Neville said the zoning map amendment reflecting the changes in the P/G-1 zone was being proposed to update the town’s overall zoning map to reflect the changes in recent years.
“When we go through this same process in the future with a major acquisition or project for the town, this will be a summary of actions that have occurred over the last five to 10 years that have not been updated on our current map,” he said.
Councilman Mark Paddack pointed out some of the changes reflected in the proposed zoning map amendment had not been updated since 1999. He asked about the decades-long gap in affecting the changes. Neville explained the 1999 date reflected the last time the town’s zoning map had been completely updated but there have been numerous map changes in the ensuing years.
“That was the last time the zoning map for the town of Ocean City was comprehensively updated,” he said. “It in intervening years, there have been a series of individual zoning map amendments. We feel comfortable with it. In each case these sites have gone through a public process.”
Paddack had a question about one of the parcels included in particular. Last year, the town agreed to swap two identical and adjacent parcels with Delmarva Power in the area of 100th Street, the latter because it plans to develop a backup battery storage facility on the site, and the former because the parcel it receives is adjacent to the existing municipal lot at 100th Street.
“There was some discussion in here bout the land swap between the town and Delmarva Power at 100th Street,” he said. “Has that taken place since the planning commission meeting?”
Neville said the land swap is still moving through the formal process.
The council voted unanimously to accept the planning commission’s findings of fact and recommendation and forward the proposed map changes to ordinance form.
