MORGANTOWN – Last week, the Morgantown Planning Commission provided a pair of approvals for the development of 104 three-bedroom townhomes on just under 13 acres at the corner of Hartman Run Road and Everlasting Lane, near the Morgantown Municipal Airport.
Those approvals came contingent on the development receiving subsequent variance relief from the Morgantown Board of Zoning Appeals tied to five standards spelled out in the city’s planning and zoning code – lot frontage, lot size, lot depth, driveway layout and design, and rear setbacks.
On Wednesday, the BZA granted each of those variance relief requests.
During his presentation before city planning, Scott Copen, of Cheat Road Engineering, conceded that five variances seems like a big ask for a single development.
The BZA hearing shed some light on why they were necessary.
In November, Morgantown City Council rezoned the property from I-1 (industrial) to B-2 (service business). Townhomes are a permitted use by right in a B-2 district.
However, code contemplates a block of townhomes as a single unit owned by an individual or company and rented to tenants. In this case, each townhome will be sold individually with its own parcel. That subdivision of parcels was one of the approvals conditionally granted by the planning commission last week.
So, as it pertains to the BZA, each of the 104 individual parcels is being held to the standard provisions spelled out for the B-2 district – for example, 60-foot lot frontage and 6,000 square-foot lot size.
Copen said he believes this will be the first townhome development within the city that will be sold off as individual units. Further, he said there’s no language in city code, regardless of zoning district, that includes provisions for separate townhome lots.
“If we wanted to develop and turn this into a rental property with 104 rental units, I would be here for one request tonight, and that’s one rear setback in the upper left corner. We wouldn’t even be discussing this,” he said. “It’s just that when the code was written, which obviously predates anybody in this room, the individual sale of townhouse lots wasn’t contemplated. You can build them, they just never contemplated somebody might want to sell them, which is kind of weird.”
As presented, the townhomes will be situated along a single loop road with one access off Everlasting Lane. Planning staff indicated both city engineering and the fire marshal have signed off on the dimensions and layout of the road, which will be owned and maintained by a homeowner’s association.
“That’s being taken care of legally. The attorneys will be involved in that to make sure that that group of people can’t come forward someday and say, ‘Hey, we’re in the city and we pay taxes and you have to take care of our road.’ We’re putting that in the deeds. It’ll be restricted so they can’t do that,” Copen said.
The project will include widening a portion of Everlasting Lane to 22 feet and the construction of a sidewalk from the development to Hartman Run Road, where a bus shelter will be located.
The project’s developer, ARJ LLC, is under a sales contract to purchase the property from Monongalia County Development Authority.
