An effort to quickly institute a moratorium on downtown expansion was unanimously dropped – at least temporarily – by the Rye City Council Wednesday night.
The vote to table the moratorium followed fierce opposition from developers and the head of the city Planning Commission, Nick Everett, during a Jan. 21 City Council hearing. The draft moratorium, first unveiled publicly at the council’s Jan. 8 meeting, was motivated by a desire to “move faster” to control potentially damaging downtown development, according to Republican Councilman Bill Henderson.
Council members agreed that further study was necessary to assess how Rye could best protect the character of the Central Business District, while maintaining that a moratorium or other zoning changes could still be options in the future.
But the council expressed contrasting views on what issues should be reviewed. Republican Councilman Keith Cunningham stressed the need to evaluate design aesthetics while Henderson advocated for zeroing in on issues of building height and size.
To help focus its efforts, members of the council indicated they would be supportive of creating a task force, and asked City Planner Christian Miller to draft an advisory memo suggesting how to best study downtown development.
The task force would likely include representatives of the city’s land use boards and the Landmarks Advisory Committee.
Mayor Josh Cohn, who is unaffiliated, expressed hope that a task force would help the council better understand “the characteristics of our Central Business District that give it unique character and charm from architectural and planning perspectives.”
Democratic Councilwoman Jamie Jensen, the liaison to the Planning Commission, asked Miller to offer approaches to controlling downtown development that would dovetail with broader issues like “smart growth” as the city begins the painstaking process of creating a new master plan over the next few years.
