OCEAN CITY – A code amendment defining non-accessory employee housing will advance to the Mayor and Council for discussion.
On Tuesday, Planning and Community Development Director Bill Neville presented the Ocean City Planning and Zoning Commission with a draft code amendment allowing non-accessory employee housing. Neville said the changes would be presented to the Mayor and Council next week before it advancing to a public hearing in May.
“Our general goal for this evening is to decide whether or not you feel it’s ready to put this package out for a public hearing and allow everyone to comment on it,” he said.
Last year, the commission recommended a proposed code amendment that could help address the shortage of seasonal workforce housing in Ocean City. While the existing code defines employee housing as an accessory use – or living quarters with a portion of a main building or an accessory building located on the same site to be used by individuals employed on the premises – officials are looking to include employee housing as a non-accessory use.
The proposed amendment, which included other changes relating to workforce housing, was brought to the Mayor and Council before it was ultimately remanded back to the commission for revision.
During Tuesday’s presentation, Neville highlighted the proposed approval processes for small, medium, and large standalone employee housing projects. Tier one projects, with 16 or fewer residents, would be approved through the building permit and rental licensing process, while tier two projects, with 60 or fewer residents, would be approved through the site plan process and tier three projects, with greater than 60 residents, would be approved through the conditional use process.
“As a reminder that would be a multi-step process,” he added, “a public hearing with the planning commission going up to council for approval of that conditional use agreement.”
Neville added that housing would be prohibited in both the R-1 single family and MH mobile home zoning districts.
“We separated out that any rental housing that’s provided in the R-1, single family or the MH mobile home zoning districts would be regulated just under the normal rental license permit process with the maximum occupancy defined by our definition of family, no more than four unrelated persons,” he explained. “That essentially keeps the single-family neighborhoods the way they are today in terms of someone’s ability to rent a house and put people in there on either a short-term or long-term basis.”
Neville told commission members this week the proposed code amendment also identified certain building types that would require a specific approval process. For example, commercial building conversions would require conditional use approval, condominium and multifamily apartment unit conversions would require owner association approval prior to a building permit or rental license approval, and one- or two-family dwelling conversions would require site plan approval.
“The reason we needed to point that out is normally single-family homes don’t require site plan review by the planning commission,” he explained. “But because of the change of use from a family dwelling to employee housing, we wanted to make sure it did meet the code through the site plan review process.”
Neville added that employee housing options had also been identified by basic building types.
“This highlights the issue for you that not every housing type can support employee housing. It also depends on what zoning district you are located in,” he said. “This was another way to graphically illustrate that we are trying to restrict and prohibit the barrack-style housing type.”
Commission members this week also reviewed new definitions and revisions that would give the board of zoning appeals the ability to grant parking exceptions. They also reviewed supplemental regulations, or best practices, being proposed for non-accessory workforce housing.
“The idea would be to make sure this expansion from accessory to non-accessory is tied to the public health safety and welfare,” Neville said.
For his part, Commissioner Palmer Gillis said supplemental regulations pertaining to parking and property management should be more specific. He questioned if the town should require that on-site property managers be a certain age.
“I don’t think a 16- or 18-year-old will be as appropriate as a 25-year-old,” he said.
Palmer also questioned if the proposed code amendment had the support of the Mayor and Council. His comments come months after recommendations from the planning commission were deleted from the council’s agenda with no discussion.
“I don’t want to go through a public hearing and staff time, and spend months, if not years on something and the town council not be on board with this …,” he said. I don’t like doing a lot of work on stuff and then getting blown out of the water.”
Neville pointed out that the proposed code amendment would be a topic of discussion at the council’s April 11 work session.
“That’s prior to the public hearing,” Commissioner Joe Wilson added. “So we will know before the public hearing if they have an issue.”
