City scraps plan to regulate Bay Estates (MAP)

The City Council chose not to limit development in the Bay Estates zoning district Monday night, disappointing some area residents who say development could change the character of their neighborhood.

Homeowners in the Bay Estates zone, which runs from Clement Taylor Park on Calhoun Avenue to Indian Bayou and includes all the waterfront property on Joe’s Bayou, originally approached the council after property owner Rod Wright received approval from the city to replat his 4.5-acre property, creating eight smaller lots, so that he could build Safe Harbor Estates gated community.

 “I think these people simply want the security that they had when they bought a large piece of land in an area that they thought would be just single-family homes,” Councilman Sandy Trammell said during the meeting.

City Planner Hank Woollard said some homeowners in the zone were concerned about developers increasing density in their neighborhood. Traditionally, the area has been made up of large family estates.

“The traditional development pattern has been single-family homes on large, deep lots,” Woollard said. “But the potential for development is probably three times as dense as what you see now.”

In response to concerned property owners, the council instructed city staff to draft an ordinance that would create the Bay Estates Waterfront zoning district, which would run from Kelly Street on the east side of Joe’s Bayou and extend to Indian Bayou. Within the new zone, minimum lot sizes would be larger, therefore restricting property owners from subdividing large lots into several smaller lots.

The council was given three options for the new proposed minimum lot size, 20,000 square feet, 30,000 square feet or 39,000 square feet.

Trammell favored option one, saying it would be the least intrusive. Each of the options would create non-conforming lots in the area, but she noted that option one created only eight more non-conforming properties than already exist in the zone, bringing the total to 39. There would be 47 nonconforming lots under option two, and 89 non-conforming lots under option three.

But Councilman Dewey Destin said he was concerned that the proposed new zoning requirements would decrease property values in the area by prohibiting property owners from subdividing their lots. He went on to say that only a few homeowners wanted the change, and he isn’t comfortable making any zoning changes that aren’t favored by a significant portion of the homeowners in the area.

“Unfortunately, I was mistaken when I thought we’d driven a stake through the heart of this,” Destin said during the meeting. “It just seems an unreasonable intrusion to me. And I think we would run afoul of some property rights laws.”

Woollard said the city held a public workshop to discuss the issue, and the property owners who attended were pretty evenly split on whether or not they wanted a change.  He said some expressed concerns about what effect the new requirements would have on their property values and whether or not people would still be able to subdivide their lots to create homesteads for family members.

On the other side of the fence, homeowners complained about crowding in their neighborhood. They also expressed concerns about opening the door for future development in the area and how such development could affect water quality in Joe’s Bayou.

“If you don’t control development, that little pristine body of water will be changed,” area resident Guy Tadlock said during the meeting. “I think any of the three options would be better than nothing.”

After much discussion, the council voted 4-3 against rezoning the area, with Councilmen Sam Seevers, Jim Wood, Kelly Windes and Dewey Destin voting no.

Woollard said there are 10 lots in the area that could be subdivided under current zoning requirements. Of the 10, seven could be split into two lots and three could be split into three or more lots. He said the city has not received any applications for replatting any of the eligible lots.

“In the current real estate market, I’m not too concerned about development,” Woollard said. “But if there’s a hot real estate market, there will be more development pressure.”