Mount Airy officials are considering city zoning ordinance changes regulating rooming houses — for which action was planned Thursday night — on the heels of Church Street residents complaining about a transient lodging establishment operating in their neighborhood.
That occurred earlier this fall in response to activities surrounding a boarding house at 204 W. Church St. creating concerns among neighbors, who were prompted to address the issue during a public forum of a council meeting.
“There’s been a lot of activity with the police,” said one forum speaker, Elizabeth McDowell, who identified herself as a former military flight nurse living across the street from the rooming house involved.
“We’re all just very unhappy about this,” said another West Church Street resident, Daphne Ayers, who mentioned that problems were caused by the short-term presence of occupants who were renting rooms by the month.
What began as a three-bedroom, one-bathroom house that was bought by a younger local resident ballooned from there with more bedroom and bathroom spaces, according to Ayers. The maximum number of people staying there at a particular time was not known.
“We feel like it’s transient people coming and going,” Ayers added in reference to vehicles parked there which another speaker said displayed license tags from all over the U.S., including such states as Texas and Arizona. “We’ve had the police over there numerous times.”
McDowell said her two teenage daughters were not comfortable getting into the car to drive to school each day because of safety issues regarding the rooming house that she termed a “public nuisance” during the forum.
“So we need this safety issue involved.”
Tim Ayers, another forum speaker, pointed out that as a neighborhood located in an R-6 (General Residential) zone, it is predominantly made up of single-family homes although apartments are located there.
But the presence of the rooming house had greatly disrupted its character, he indicated.
Tim Ayers told city officials that 15 families had gone on record as opposing the use in question.
“We do not want a rooming house in our neighborhood,” he said.
“We would like to change the ordinance so it doesn’t happen,” Daphne Ayers stated, which the forum comments suggested should include not only banning such establishments throughout the city in the future but disallowing the one in existence.
McDowell referred to language in the Mount Airy code of ordinances which states that the intent of these regulations is to promote public health, safety, morals and the general welfare of citizens.
City government response
Mount Airy Planning Director Andy Goodall reacted to the residents’ concerns’ by pointing out that no city permit had been issued for the rooming house, because the owner of the property decided to abandon that use.
Strict building codes were given as his reason for this, according to the planning director.
But Goodall said the Mount Airy Planning Board — an advisory group to the commissioners — would be discussing and considering changes as to how rooming and boarding houses, which are allowable uses in the municipality, are handled.
That has now occurred with the development of proposed ordinance amendments, which will require a public hearing to be held before the changes can be approved and put into effect. The commissioners were expected during a meeting Thursday night to schedule the hearing for another council meeting on Jan. 20 at 6 p.m.
One proposed change in Mount Airy’s residential use guidelines would involve removing the term boarding/rooming house and replacing it with rooming house alone — separated into transient and non-transient facilities.
The transient rooming house is defined as any single dwelling unit containing no more than five guest rooms and limited to that number of people where rent is paid, with transient specified as less than 30 days.
Such a facility would have to meet city minimum housing and state building codes before a certificate to operate was issued.
The proposed amendments also call for a house to be overseen by a resident manager.
One parking space would be required for each guest room and one for the manager, located at the side or rear of the structure.
Wording that has allowed boarding/rooming houses in the R-20 (Single-Family Residential), R-6 (General Residential) and R-4 (Office-Residential) zoning districts was stricken for purposes of the amendment package.
Transient facilities would be allowed only in R-4 zones with a special-use permit, based on city government documents, with greater leeway proposed for the non-transient variety.
Source: https://www.mtairynews.com