There’s a saying about an ounce of prevention being worth a pound of cure.
That saying, Monongalia County Planning Director Andrew Gast-Bray explained, gets to the heart of why the county needs subdivision regulations.
He said results of completely unregulated development are all over the county, primarily in the form of tiny farm roads serving major developments and uncontrolled water runoff.
“To put it simply, we want good development. We don’t want bad development because then we all end up fixing that and it costs the taxpayers a lot of money,” Gast-Bray said.
Subdivision regulations, which have been on and off the county’s radar a number of times dating back to 1968, are one of four documents used in planning — the others being comprehensive plans, zoning codes and building codes.
He explained that while zoning determines what can go where, subdivision regulations deal specifically with how property is divided and accessed.
“The reality is, it only impacts those who are subdividing land — usually big developers,” Gast-Bray said. “The vast majority of people really aren’t going to be impacted by this in any way except insofar as they’re often the neighbors of these developments and are usually the ones who suffer when things aren’t right.”
The county’s planning office has laid out a timeline that would tentatively get this latest attempt at subdivision regulations before the county commission in November. That timeline includes four public meetings in October and a developer roundtable that is being scheduled.
Given there has been no regulation on development up this point in Monongalia County, Gast-Bray said he knows not all developers are going to be on board.
That said, he explained that the regulations were crafted to give maximum flexibility to meet fairly basic standards.
“We went with a really light touch with this and there’s a lot of flexibility in it. Say you’re building a subdivision and it’s kind of large for the farm road you’re on. We give five different ways to bring that situation up to standard. … So there is flexibility and it’s scaled appropriately. We’re not going to make a 30-unit subdivision build three and a half miles of road.”
Even so, there will likely be pushback.
“The truth is most developers are fine, but there’s been some bad development in this county and we all suffer for it,” he said, later adding, “People say we shouldn’t require this or that, but we have to start somewhere. If we don’t, many won’t do it. We’ve seen to this point, they’ve had the freedom and they didn’t do it.”
This latest effort to pass regulations began in 2013. It follows major initiatives that were undertaken and ultimately abandoned in 1978, 1994 and 2009.
County Commission President Tom Bloom said he believes this effort will ultimately be successful.
“It’s time to equalize the playing field. I think we have 90% good developers and they’re punished by the other 10%,” Bloom said, explaining that one of the most frequently raised issues during his time in elected office has been uncontrolled water runoff.
“I think all three commissioners are worried about water runoff and also building up roads so they don’t crumble, leaving the county or homeowner association or someone else to pick it up,” he said.
Bloom said he is pleased with the flexibility in the document as well as the robust waiver process and the creation of a review board.
“That’s something we’ve never had in there before,” he said.
A link to the latest version of draft regulations and accompanying guidelines can be found at monongaliacounty.gov/ moncpc/subdivision.php.
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