NORTH MYRTLE BEACH — When the HMT Marina Group applied for annexation into North Myrtle Beach, it launched a series of actions that should culminate Monday night in a second reading of an ordinance creating a zoning district for marinas.

North Myrtle Beach City Councilman Bob Cavanaugh believes the ordinance, which has been tweaked since it was first introduced, will pass in its new version.

City officials decided when they got the annexation application that the city needed a marina zoning, so an ordinance was written and it duly passed first reading. Then officials thought maybe one marina zone wouldn’t cover all the situations the city wanted it to, so the second reading was tabled while the Council deliberated over creating two zones.

Cavanaugh said the resolution came at a recent City Council workshop when members decided to have one zone for a docking facility only and another which would cover marinas that had other commercial operations such as dry storage and tours.

The docking-facility-only zone is to be used where the marina is near residential areas, as is the planned one for which annexation was requested.

Cavanaugh said prior to this instance, North Myrtle Beach had approved marinas in commercial or limited commercial zones.

But the proximity of the planned marina to the Tidewater subdivision and next to 200 acres to 300 acres that almost certainly would be developed as residential raised a flag that hadn’t been flown before.

“The one I’m most concerned with is a marina in a residential area,” Cavanaugh said.

The likely zoning designation for the site of the planned marina raises something of a quandary for its developers, who couldn’t be reached Friday for comment.

The plan they forwarded with their annexation request was for a marina with dry storage.

The developers could remain in unincorporated Horry County and not have to deal with the city’s sensitivities.

But should they decide to do that, they wouldn’t be able to get water and sewer service from either the city or Grand Strand Water and Sewer Authority. Fred Richardson, the Authority’s executive director, said it cannot serve the marina because Authority lines are limited to areas west of the Intracoastal Waterway. The marina is planned for the east side of the waterway.

And it is unlikely that the state Department of Health and Environmental Control, which must permit the docks, would allow development along the waterway that didn’t have sewer service at least.

Cavanaugh said he doesn’t know if HMT Marina Group has any plans to alter its proposal so that the planned marina is a dock-in-water only facility.

Contact STEVE JONES at 444-1765.