Petition halts Rehoboth zoning ordinance
A petition signed by 467 Rehoboth Beach voters has put a halt to enforcement of the town’s recently passed zoning changes.
The petition, presented by attorney Gene Lawson to the commissioners Aug. 21, calls for a public referendum on the zoning ordinance passed July 17. City Manager Sharon Lynn has 20 days to certify the petition. According to city charter, by filing the petition, the zoning ordinance is suspended from taking effect.
Mayor Sam Cooper said if the petition has enough signatures to be certified, the matter would go back to the commissioners at their Friday, Sept. 18 meeting to determine whether the city will hold a public referendum on the ordinance.
Lawson, a longtime Rehoboth-based attorney, said he was contacted by a loose collective of 15 to 20 property owners seeking to do something about the new zoning ordinance.
“It was not a formal thing,” he said.
What Lawson found was a section of the city charter regulating referendums. Under the charter, qualified residents and property owners can require reconsideration of any adopted ordinance, approve it or reject it. The power of referendum does not extend to the budget or financial matters.
According to another part of the charter, to force council to reconsider an ordinance, a referendum petition must be signed by 40 percent of voters at the last election or 300 people eligible to vote, whichever is greater. At the August election, 1,004 people voted.
Lawson said the city may try to disqualify some signatures. He said the city could do this by disqualifying signatures of people who are not registered voters and removing the names of voters who have not voted in the last two city elections. It is unclear whether property owners who are not registered to vote are eligible to sign the petition.
Lawson said signatures were gathered through his office. Signers took it door-to-door and outside the polls at the Aug. 8 city election.
City charter says if the petition is presented to the commissioners, they must make a decision to repeal the ordinance or put it before the voters within 30 to 60 days. Lawson said if it comes to that, he thinks the referendum would be held in November.
The commissioners passed the new zoning ordinance by a 6-1 vote. Commissioner Kathy McGuiness was the only one to vote no. Intended to shrink the size of new residential houses, the ordinance increases the amount of natural, unbuilt area from 40 percent to 50 percent of the total lot size. Fifty percent of the front-yard setback must be natural and the rear-yard setback was increased from 10 to 15 feet. On a standard 50-by-100-foot lot, that would require 2,000 to 2,500 square feet of unbuilt space.
In addition, the floor to area ratio (FAR) remained the same, limiting floor space on a 5,000 square-foot lot to 3,000 or a FAR of .6. However, new houses with pools are now required to adhere to a lower FAR of 2,500 square feet or half the size of an average lot. The ordinance also limits houses in the main residential districts to 4,500 square feet, regardless of lot size. In the R-1(S) district, a special residential district comprising large lots in the Pines, houses can be as large as 6,000 square feet.
