Commission takes look at new plat rules, values
By Steve Herring
Published in News on November 15, 2010 1:46 PM
Proposed changes to the county's subdivision ordinance will be the subject of a Tuesday morning public hearing before Wayne County commissioners.
The hearing will get under way at 9:15 a.m. in the commissioners' boardroom on the fourth floor of the county courthouse annex. The session will start with an agenda briefing at 8 a.m. followed by the meeting at 9 a.m.
The changes were recommended by the county Planning Board and must be approved by commissioners to become effective.
The proposals include:
* Increasing the number of preliminary plat prints from six to eight and provides the option of submitting digital instead of the paper copies
* Adding Wayne County Cooperative Extension Service, Wayne County Emergency Services and Wayne County Board of Education to the agencies that receive copies of preliminary plats
* After the initial review by the Planning Department, increases the number of corrected black or blue line prints, complete with corrections, from nine to 14
* Requiring the subdivider to provide 15 paper copies, along with a digital copy, for approval by commissioners.
* Decreasing the number of blue or black line copies of the original final plat from six to two and provides the option of submitting digital instead of the paper copies
* After the initial review by the Planning Department, increases from nine to 14 the number or blue or black line paper prints complete with corrections
* Requiring the subdivider to provide 15 paper copies of the final plat, along with a digital copy, for approval by commissioners.
The proposals also would require that preliminary and final plats include water distribution lines and fire hydrant locations and dimensions.
Other planning-related issues on Tuesday's agenda include consideration of three subdivision final plats. All three were recommended for approval by the county Planning Board at its meeting last week.
The plats are:
* Frederick and Patricia White final, three lots on the east side of Antioch Loop Road in Pikeville Township.
* Stacy E. Whittington final, one lot on the south side of Bartlett Road in Pikeville Township.
* Kenneth Coor Jr. final, two-lot revision on the south side of Old Smithfield Road in Pikeville Township. The revision was required after a house on one of the lots had been built over an access right of way.
In other business Tuesday, commissioners will consider adoption of the proposed schedules of real property values. A public hearing was held on the schedules at the board's Nov. 2 meeting.
The schedule of values provides a base cost figure and is one of several factors that are used to determine a property's value, tax officials said at the hearing.
The schedules, in effect, comprise a manual that gives appraisers a starting point as to how to value a home.
Copies of the schedules are available for public inspection in the county tax office on the first floor of the courthouse annex.
Property owners will receive notification of their property's new value in late March or early April. The notification will include paperwork with which to file an informal appeal. Once an informal appeal is filed, the tax office will review the property.
If the tax office does not change the value, the taxpayer may appeal to the county commissioners sitting as the Board of Equalization and Review.
Property values will be based on the property's market value as of Jan. 1, 2011. The taxes cannot be applied to the property until county commissioners adopt a tax rate.
Four notices about the schedule of values will be published over a two-month period on Nov. 17 and 24 and Dec. 1 and 8.
Dec. 17 is the final day that the schedules can be appealed.
Also on Tuesday, commissioners will take up again a language access plan that is being required by the federal government for Community Development Block Grant recipients.
The plan requires that documents associated with the grants be translated into Spanish.
At their Nov. 2 session, commissioners and County Manager Lee Smith said it was unclear which documents would have to be translated. If it applies to documents that already exist in electronic form, then there should be no problem, Smith said.
However, if it refers to filing cabinets full of documents then the process would not only be time-consuming, but costly as well, he said. In that case, all of the documents would have to be retyped and converted into an electronic form.
Commissioners also questioned whether this meant that the documents would have to be translated into other languages in the future.
Smith was asked to review the plan and report back to the board.