Monongalia County Commission image.
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — A long time proposed change to Monongalia County’s subdivision ordinance will have to be delayed for at least a month longer.
Monongalia County Director of Planning Andrew Gast-Bray, requested that proposed changes that were presented in November to Commission, be pushed back due to feedback from members of the public. This requested was approved by Commission with the intent on hearing more feedback and suggestions on changes that could be made and it turn impact future development projects in Monongalia County.
“In the past, the County Commission has made it clear that this is not a race to get an ordinance adopted,” said Gast-Bray. “And as such we have respected the request where possible, to this end it would be my reccomendation that we extend, yet again, the deadline for feedback, at least one month,” he said.
The subdivision ordinance, if formally passed by Monongalia County Commission, would update several construction standards which would allow for road patterns, utility lines, among others, to be unaffected by land development in the county. Any projects proposed in before the end of 2022, would be grandfathered in with the standards in place before the ordinances passing. The schedule for this proposal was delayed at the request of Gast-Bray, is due to recent negative feedback of the changes, by members of the development community. These concerns, have stemmed from a document coming out of the County’s planning office back in 2019, which they feel appears to be more like zoning changes instead of subdivision regulations which Gast-Bray stated, have been addressed multiple times. Despite that, the recent outpoor of negative feedback appears to have not subsided, leading to the County’s planning office desire for more time to hear other proposals.
“I feel, I should stress that I’m a bit suprised that some of the development community are so opposed to this ordinance,” said Gast-Bray regarding the oppposition. “It is not zoning, it does not limit what can be built where, only whatever a development choses to build, that it have the appropriate infrastructure to serve it,” he said.
While both Gast-Bray and Monongalia County Commission supported the delay of the subdivision ordinance, both parties found the timing of the feedback unfortunate due to the changes that took place earlier this year ahead meetings with developers in November. According to both prior meetings of Commission and the County Planning Office, the subdivsion regulations ordinance would have been officially posted for public review during the meeting, with public hearings scheduled for late December and eventual Commission vote in January of 2022. Now with the extra delay, Monongalia County officials are ready to put an issue to bed that has been on an up and down discussion for officials since the 1960’s.