Myrtle Beach reimagines zoning

The nation's economic trough provided one positive for Myrtle Beach - a chance to take a breather from development and consider the future.

Tuesday, people will have the chance to talk about the city's future as the Planning Commission holds a public hearing on the latest draft of the citywide zoning rewrite that has been in the works for the past three years.

Planning specialist Kelly Mezzapelle said as development waned and the Planning Commission's meeting agendas shortened - right around the same time the city's 10-year comprehensive plan update was due - it gave the planning staff members and the commission the chance to work on both the zoning code and the comprehensive plan at the same time.

The rewrite's effects won't be noticeable until redevelopment occurs, but once the recession ends, "we could have a bit of a development boom, and people may see pockets of substantial change," she said.

Like the comprehensive plan - the update of which is being finalized by the City Council this summer - the zoning rewrite determines how the community develops in the future.

More than 400 people took part in the city's "It's Time" visioning process back in the late 1990s, Mezzapelle said, and gave city leaders input on their views of how Myrtle Beach should look and function in the coming 20 years. That helped develop the 1999 comprehensive plan, which was updated over the past two years through more public meetings and committee work.

Sustainability is the overarching theme of the plan, and the zoning rewrite helps make the plan's goals become policy-based reality.

For example, one of the goals laid out in the comprehensive plan is to make certain areas of the city more pedestrian-friendly, to reduce the amount of impervious paving surface that carries unfiltered stormwater directly into the city's swashes, to reduce the need for cars for the environment and to relieve traffic.

The zoning rewrite, Mezzapelle said, proposes changes along the commercial sections of Kings Highway and the commercial sections between Kings Highway and the beach, with new mixed-use districts.

"Now, on most properties, all you are allowed to build are transient accommodations [hotels, condotels, etc. ...]," she said. "This has led to traffic congestion because people staying in those units have to get in their car and drive to other areas to shop or eat; parking congestion because every time they move that car they have to find a place to park it; large seas of asphalt because, for example, the hotel has to provide them a parking space, the restaurant has to provide them a parking space and the store has to provide them a parking space - that's three parking spaces for each car, and a deterioration of some third- and fourth-row properties where there simply isn't much of a market for the only use currently allowed."

The new districts will allow more flexibility for developers, she said, and the zoning policies will require more sidewalks, different parking setups and larger setbacks.

"The long-term result should be districts that are easy and desirable to walk around. Tourists will have the opportunity to drive into Myrtle Beach, park in their hotel garages, and not get in their cars again until they are heading home," she said.

The city offers an online map that shows the proposed changes for each property inside city limits, and Mezzapelle said there are new, easy-to-use tables to help people get more information about proposed regulations, setbacks, height restrictions and design standards.

People can review that before attending Tuesday's hearing.

City spokesman Mark Kruea said turnout for the hearing could be light because the city has already held public workshops and public hearings, which resulted in the draft now being considered.

"The public does have the tendency to wait until the last minute," Kruea said.

The Planning Commission can forward the draft on to the City Council as it is or hold it and make more changes, but before the proposal becomes law, it must have two votes from the Myrtle Beach City Council.

"We think this is the last stop, but we'll see what kind of input Tuesday brings," Kruea said.

"Once the zoning code rewrite receives final council approval," Mezzapelle said, "it will be the document that everyone follows."