Not Just “Flag Lots,” but the Principles of Law and Transparency: The Issues in a Rare Appeal by a Member of the Brevard Planning Board
The member said city planners didn’t follow law limiting irregularly shaped lots and didn’t explain the decision; the city’s planning director said he did follow law and did explain.
Correction: An earlier version of this story reported that City Council member Maureen Copelof had not returned messages seeking comment; that voice-mail message and text were sent to an incorrect number.
By Dan DeWitt
BREVARD — The first reason Brevard Planning Board member Greg Hunter took the unusual step of appealing the plan for a six-lot subdivision on West Probart Street:
He says it clearly violates the city’s ordinance limiting irregularly shaped parcels called “flag lots.”
“If we as a city want something different, we should change the rule,” he said; otherwise, “we should stand by the rule as it is written.”
And the second reason? City Planning Director Paul Ray and Assistant Planning Director Aaron Bland refused to explain their decision when he met with them in late May, he said.
“Paul literally sat back in his chair and said, ‘We are not prepared to discuss this at this time,’ ” Hunter said. “It seems to go against the whole idea that city businesses should be transparent.”
“That is not how that meeting went at all,” Ray said, adding that he told Hunter what he will argue at the appeal hearing before the city’s Board of Adjustment, scheduled for 3 p.m. Tuesday in the City Hall’s Council Chambers:
This isn’t a violation of rules regulating flag lots, he said, because “we maintain these are not flag lots.”
The plan covers a five-acre parcel that the City Council approved for annexation in February at the request of local builder and developer George Lenze, who did not respond to a call to his office for comment.
Because the land lay within the city’s Extra-Territorial Jurisdiction (ETJ) and was already zoned for residential use, it did not require zoning approval, said Bland, who signed off on the plan in April.
“The approval of a minor subdivision is a staff-level decision. There is no public hearing (required),” Ray said. “The only transparency about subdivision plats is that they are recorded at the (Transylvania County) Register of Deeds.”
What are Flag Lots?
Ray, in a report prepared for Tuesday’s hearing, called “flag lots” a “nebulous term,” and said in an interview that “it’s even hard to find a textbook definition of flag lots.”
Generally, according to a collection of local definitions included in an American Planning Association that Hunter provided to NewsBeat, they are called “flag lots” because that is just what they look like.
The “flag” is the often-rectangular portion of the lot that is set back from the road and is large enough to accommodate a house or business; the “pole,” is the strip of land leading to it, usually wide enough for a driveway and not much else, the document says.
In local government discussions of flag lots posted online, such parcels are sometimes presented in a positive light — a way to maximize the development potential of lots with limited road frontage, which can be especially valuable in localities, such as Brevard, where land is scarce.
Discussion of drawbacks to this development pattern is harder to track down, and even a professor of planning at the University of North Carolina’s School of Government demurred from commenting because, he wrote in an email, “I haven’t looked into the history.”
But a website called Useful Community Development, says flag lots are discouraged because of the “desire for some degree of uniformity in the building setback line. This tends to create a nicer-looking neighborhood in the minds of many people.”
The site also says uniform plot lines make it easier for local governments to provide services, including utilities, “police, fire, and garbage collection.”
Amid this confusion, Hunter and Ray do agree on one point: the city code does not forbid these lots, just limits the length of “pole” to less than 100 feet. That’s where Hunter finds a clear violation. The pole portion of four of these lots is longer than that, he said, and one of them extends nearly 300 feet.
“I’m not opposed to development per se, and I’m not opposed to flag lots,” he said. “But I am opposed to public officials ignoring ordinances as they are written.”
Ray, in his report, said that because code does not adequately define flag lots, his interpretation also relies on information in a textbook his office uses as a guide. The one lot that came closest to fitting this book’s definition didn’t violate city code because the “flag” was less than 100 feet long, he wrote.
Three other lots in question included access strips far too wide to be considered poles. Also, he wrote, the larger portion of these lots, which accommodate the home sites, are only slightly wider than the pole and don’t jut from them at a sharp angle.
“These lots are shaped more like the state of California than flags,” he wrote in the report, which helpfully includes a side-by-side comparison of a map of the state and the lots in the plat.
Out in the Open
There is one other point of agreement — the value of airing the issue out in public.
Though Ray, who has worked for the city for six years, said he doesn’t know of another case of a Planning Board member appealing a staff decision, he’s got no problem with it.
“We don’t mind when people appeal our decisions,” he said. “There’s no hardship for us in explaining why we did something.”
That’s all Hunter is asking for, he said. He doesn’t want to stop the subdivision’s construction, which is well underway. He’s just seeking a thorough and open explanation about why the lots were approved.
“This whole thing should be public,” he said.
Mayor Pro Tem Mac Morrow said he didn’t know enough about the complaint to comment on it, but Hunter’s cause has been taken up by Council member Geraldine Dinkins, who recently wrote a Facebook post encouraging residents to attend Tuesday’s meeting.
Though she raised the possibility that the approval was a “gentleman’s agreement,” she wrote, she also looked forward to having it hashed out in public.
“If all rules were followed,” she wrote, “we will learn that during this BOA hearing.”
Correction: An earlier version of this story stated that City Council member Maureen Copelof failed to return requests for an interview; those requests were sent to an incorrect phone number.
Dan
I heard something I want to tell you about. It’s not a comment on the lots story. Can you get back to me, please?