Waynesville town leaders will launch a review of the town’s land-use plan in coming months that could either reaffirm or nibble away at the rigorous but lauded development standards.

“We are going to revisit it and make sure this is what our community wants and make sure it works,” said Mayor Gavin Brown.

The move was sparked by a developer of a Walgreens drug store who this month asked the town board to relax its development codes. Such a request is nothing new, with developers frequently coming to the town board for exemptions. Occasionally the town acquiesces — if the request is minor and the requirements truly are unworkable for a particular project.

But that wasn’t the motive for this request. Walgreens’ prototype storefront doesn’t meet the town’s design standards, so the developer wanted the town to change its standards instead of redesigning the store to fit Waynesville. Town leaders said they would not rewrite the town’s development standards on the fly just because they are inconvenient to a particular developer.

“We cannot continue to change this at every juncture,” said Alderwoman Libba Feichter. “It is not worth the paper it is written on, it is not worth the effort it took to prepare this to say ‘Let’s change it every time somebody comes.’ If we want to change it, we need to look at it and figure out how to change this in a constructive way.”

Alderman LeRoy Roberson agreed.

“I agree it needs to be looked at, but not wholesale changes like this,” Roberson said. “If it is worthwhile, and this plan is worthwhile, then we need to do it right.”

The town board voted unanimously to embark on a review of the development standards. It will take several months, but any changes that result will be well thought-out and not impromptu exemptions to help a developer here and there, aldermen said.

“It bothers me to do things piecemeal,” Brown said of Walgreens’ request. “If we go at this piecemeal, it is not going to be good for our community in the long-run.”

Aldermen have different goals for the review, however. At least one board member would like to weaken many of the town’s standards, claiming they are too tough.

“I feel like we need to make some changes,” said Alderman Kenneth Moore. “Honestly, it’s not working and we need to get it right.”

But the other aldermen are more tempered in their idea of the review. One theme among board members was wanting to ferret out “what’s not working.”

“I think this whole thing needs to be looked at again and see what’s working and what’s not working,” said Alderman Gary Caldwell. “We need to look at it so we’re not coming up here every meeting and having to change it.”

Bring in the public

A review of the town’s land-use plan was already on the minds of board members before Walgreens’ request surfaced. During the town election last fall, the land-use plan emerged as a campaign topic. Several board members said then it was time for a comprehensive review of the town’s development rules.

Waynesville’s land-use plan is based on smart growth principles.

It requires commercial developers to build sidewalks, plant trees along the street and in their parking lots, and adhere to architectural standards. Signs are kept to a low height and parking lots are kept small, or at least not oversized.

The standards are tailored to different parts of town, with a total of 29 neighborhoods and business districts boasting their own version of the land-use plan. The plan was developed with extensive public input.

“For a period of three years, we met and met and met and talked to people and got every kind of input you could imagine to look at this community as a whole, but also as individual neighborhoods,” Feichter said. “The process we went through was exhausting. It involved anybody and everybody who wanted to come speak.”

If the plan is going to be altered much, it should involve the public just as the original plan did, said Henry Foy, the mayor for past 16 years. Foy was one of 10 speakers to share their thoughts at the town board meeting when Walgreens made its request.

“What I am suggesting is before you change or amend the land-use plan, let’s call the consultants back here and get our boards and commissions involved and any interested people involved in what’s happening,” Foy said.

Foy said Walgreens request would cause a “chain reaction” of similar requests that would undermine the land-use plan.

“We’ve won numerous awards with it, which isn’t what we were trying to do but we have become recognized all over the state and the Southeast, too. We don’t want to lose that.”

Mayor Gavin Brown agreed that the process should include a consultant or facilitator.

“Let’s go back to the drawing board and bring in the appropriate people and sit down and look at this thing,” Brown said.

The process will likely involve a citizen-led task force, public input workshops and an outside facilitator. The board will decide on the exact format in early April.

Walgreens’ wish

Walgreens is eyeing a tract on South Main Street, a corridor primed for development with the coming of a Super Wal-Mart and Home Depot. The area will likely become the new commercial hub of Waynesville. Town leaders are eager to ensure the nature of the growth fits with the town’s character.

Mayor Gavin Brown said he doesn’t want South Main to become another Russ Avenue — a streetscape that’s both visually unattractive and unpleasant to navigate.

“That would be unacceptable to me as mayor and for my town,” Brown said. “South Main will not have the problems we have on Russ Avenue. It will be done differently.”

Instead, town leaders want a pedestrian-friendly, tree-lined boulevard with sidewalks and attractive building facades. The tone of South Main will largely hinge on road design. The N.C. Department of Transportation is making plans to widen the road, and the town is lobbying for something other than the average five-lane commercial corridor.

The rest hinges on how buildings look, which is why aldermen took the Walgreens request so seriously. Ed Shipe, a developer for Walgreens, appeared before the town board at a meeting this month and asked them to weaken the architectural requirements.

“This is a well-designed architectural building,” Shipe said, holding up a poster of a Walgreen’s store, first for the town board then swiveling around for the audience to see. “My proposition is this is not the type of building you are trying to prevent from coming in. We are not trying to put in a cinder block building here or put in something that is not well built. This is an attractive building that is fairly expensive to put in.”

Shipe said the brick building with a single row of windows and metal awning was Walgreens’ “standard prototype.” That did not go over well with the majority of town board members.

“I didn’t really see that Walgreens is ready to buy in to the community with this,” said Alderman LeRoy Roberson. “It is the same store they have everywhere else.”

The requirement that most riled Walgreens, as it does most developers, is no parking lots in front of buildings. Instead parking must go to the side or rear. The goal is to create a streetscape lined with building façades, awnings, and sidewalks — not dominated by asphalt and parked cars. Developers hate the requirement, however. It particularly complicates the building layout when drive-thrus are involved.

Shipe also asked the town to lift this requirement, citing complications it poses for a drive-through pharmacy window.

Walgreens’ backers

Several speakers at the board meeting backed Shipe, including Joe Taylor, owner of Taylor Ford dealership. Taylor said the town was not thinking realistically about what South Main Street will become — namely another Russ Avenue. Taylor said it is not realistic to try to recreate Russ Avenue into something it isn’t.

“Our present land-use plan is trying to make a highway district look similar to the downtown district. Moving the buildings up to the street is not going to make 25,000 cars a day pedestrian-friendly,” Taylor said, citing Russ Avenue traffic counts. “It is a highway business district. You get in your car. You go to your destination, get your stuff, get back in your car, go to the next destination. It is not a walking area.”

By forcing building façades to be closer to the street and pushing parking to the side and rear, it will make it impossible to ever widen the road, Taylor said.

“We keep strapping them by pulling our buildings up and saying ‘Now boys that road is a big as we are ever going to want it,’” Taylor said. Taylor is building a bank on South Main Street and, like Shipe, wants to have parking in front of the building.

Philan Medford, a town resident who was active in writing the town’s land-use plan, said the requirements have a purpose.

“We realized development would place in jeopardy the characteristics of the town that many in the community value,” Medford said.

Foy said that’s why everyone wants to be here.

“It is our land-use plan that has created all this interest from these outsiders to come in here,” Foy said. “Waynesville has prospered in these last five years.”

Some speakers questioned whether the land-use plan is truly creating attractive buildings, however. Two examples frequently cited by land-use plan critics are the McDonald’s and CVS on Russ Avenue.

“Neither one is an asset to this community,” said Johnnie Curé, a Realtor.

Some feared Walgreens would simply bail out rather than conform.

“My opinion is don’t send Walgreens away,” said Keith Gibson

But another speaker, Doug Ellis, said if Wal-Mart and Home Depot were willing to meet the town most of the way on the development standards, Walgreens can, too.

“I think Walgreens, if y’all want to come, make it look like we want. It will be a better building for you, a better building for us. Compromise should be there but don’t throw the baby out with the bath water,” said Ellis, a builder.

Those who supported the changes referred to them simply as “tweaking” the ordinances, while those who were against it considered it much more “tweaking.” Both sides are hoping the review of the land-use plan will go in their favor.

John Burgin, a builder, said ordinances are meant to evolve.

“I urge the board to look at the whole development ordinance. There are other places in the development ordinance that could stand some tweaking also,” Burgin said.

Shipe got positive reinforcement for his request from the town’s planner, Paul Benson. Benson is a critic of some elements in the town’s land-use plan and sometimes ends up as an advocate for developers seeking exemptions. Benson suggested the exemptions apply not just to Walgreens, but throughout South Main Street.

Developers jumped on Benson’s support of the changes.

“He knows more about this than anybody else in this room and he recommends we make some changes,” said Roger Winge, the owner of the tract Walgreens would like to build on. “I think that is the general consensus of everybody who’s worked with it.”

“I think you need to listen to the folks who deal with this ordinance every single day,” said Burgin.

Benson’s stance was apparently in conflict with what the majority of the town board wanted to see, at least for right now, however.

“It appears Mr. Benson has not bought into the concept of these land-use standards,” said Roscoe Wells, a speaker at the meeting. “Do we really want to duplicate Russ Avenue as the southern entrance to Waynesville?”