Council shifts stand on 11th Street zoning
BY PHIL REYNOLDS SOUTH JETTY REPORTER

The character of the street is changing from residential to rental and Changing 11th Street condominium properties. City council members reversed an earlier stand last week to grant a property owner rezoning from single-family to rental, which critics fear may open a floodgate of similar zoning requests. The city's draft land use map shows the street as becoming largely commercial in the future. The view here is looking north.

City council members on Thursday, Sept. 21, reversed an earlier decision and approved the re-zoning of property on South 11th Street near Avenue G from single-family to rental property.

The council's vote was 6-0, with council member Beverly Charles abstaining.

The approval of the ordinance on the first of three readings opens the way for other residents whose singlefamily properties front 11th Street also to seek higher zoning levels for their properties. It also may be the beginning of the city's comprehensive look at redesigning the entire length of 11th Street, which runs from Avenue G to Beach Access Road 1A.

The decision came on Troy and Traci Ousley's second request to rezone the lot at 831 South 11th St. The city's planning and zoning commission had recommended approval of the Ousleys' original request in June, but the council rejected it. When the couple came before the commission the second time, in August, commissioners again recommended approval, on a 6-1 vote.

This time, the council officially recognized what residents already know

-that 11th Street is tending toward rental properties and condominiums. Members also noted that the city's

proposed land use map, which had just been started in June, is now nearly complete and projects a higher use than residential for properties along 11th Street.

Residents of the Lighthouse Addition, where the property is, argued that covenants in the subdivision require that properties remain single-family.

Jean Peters told the council that a second hearing on the same subject "appears to be a matter of the tail going to wag the dog."

"This council has more important things to spend its time on," she said.

Peters added that the second planning and zoning commission recommendation in favor of the rezoning looked like "the good old boy system."

"That's why we are here, to protect the integrity of our neighborhood - one of the last quiet, family-oriented neighborhoods in town," she said. "Once you head south on 11th Street, neighborhoods like those found in Old Town are a thing of the past."

However, city Planning and Projects Director David Parsons pointed out that the original covenants foresaw lots along 11th Street and Avenue G as being commercial uses.

"Actually, in the covenants of the Lighthouse Addition, all the properties that front 11th Street and all the properties that front Avenue G ... are identified for business, commercial or trade purposes, two-family duplex dwellings and multi-family apartment units," he told the council.

City Attorney Mike Morris told the council that subdivision covenants are agreements among property owners, and that the city council should not be trying to enforce them.

"The Lighthouse Addition is a privately created subdivision. It defines the land that is subject to it. The city's regulatory stand is totally separate and independent from that," Morris said.

Council member Keith McMullin argued that the city should be consistent in not approving any rezoning along 11th Street until the land use plan is finalized - a project that City Manager Michael Kovacs said will take "at least three months, possibly five months."

But Parsons said the plan is at least 90 percent complete now and clearly indicates the direction that property use is taking along the 11th Street corridor.

Council member Mike Hall argued that the city had been postponing zoning decisions on 11th Street for too long, and owes property owners some action.

"We saw these (zoning requests) coming over and over again, so we said let's wait until the land use plan is done and then we'll start doing it," he said.

"But that was more than a year and a half ago, and these people on 11th Street have lives to move on with. ... (Residents of) 11th Street have been asking this council for a long time ... and I think it's time we started doing it."

In passing the ordinance on the first reading, council members conceded that the property deserves higher zoning than single-family residential.

"He's on 11th Street, (he) has no access to any other street ... he's bordered by a large motel chain and restaurants," council member Bubba Jensen pointed out. "He's requesting a zoning change which complies with the covenants of the subdivision. I see no reason to withhold it from him, and the land use plan is going the same direction."

Council member Rick Pratt agreed: "It is in compliance with their own covenant agreement, which has been pointed out to us, so we're not even violating the covenant, though that is not of any concern or should not be of any concern to us. He is currently surrounded by properties which are already zoned that way, and he is essentially in a commercial zone. I see no reason in the world to withhold it."

Summed up mayor Claude Brown: "If Mr. Ousley was asking for a dog and pony show I could understand it being a problem, But he's asking to comply with what the (draft land use) map is showing."

The rezoning ordinance has two more readings to pass before it becomes official.