In a move to protect the character of Rye’s Central Business District, the City Council began a legislative process on Wednesday that could end up reducing the maximum allowable downtown building height from 40 to 35 feet.
The action came out of report authored by the city’s Central Business District Development Review Committee — a a group created in February and tasked with exploring municipal strategies that would support “suitable and appropriate” downtown development.
The 12-page report describes the characteristics that make downtown Rye attractive, analyzes the CBD’s strengths, weaknesses, as well as opportunities and threats, and offers five recommendations.
City Planner Christian Miller said the committee’s call to reduce maximum building height was the “only low-hanging fruit” that lent itself to quick action. The move is a good idea, the report suggests, because the current 40-foot allowance “is higher than necessary to accommodate a three-story mixed-use building.”
Making the move would deter developers from seeking variances to build four-story buildings, Miller explained.
After hearing presentations by Miller and Nick Everett, chairman of the Planning Commission and a member of the CBD committee, the City Council unanimously instructed Kristen Wilson, the city’s corporation counsel, to draft a local law lowering the permitted height to 35 feet.
Passing such a law is expected to take at least several months to allow for environmental review, Wilson said.
All three candidates for mayor — Democrat Josh Nathan, Republican Bill Henderson and Independent candidate Rick McCabe — voiced support for quickly moving on the allowable height recommendation.
The committee also recommended reviewing and possibly altering current permitted uses and parking requirements that could promote greater diversity of businesses and a healthier pedestrian experience; restoring a 2014 tax break — no longer in effect — that incentivized property owners to preserve historic downtown buildings; and reimagining how “a more desirable connection” could be developed between the train station and the core of the commercial district on Purchase Street.
In their remarks Miller and Everett indicated the biggest threat to downtown was the possible construction of large buildings lacking design elements that fit with the aesthetics of the area. Current zoning does not provide Rye’s land use boards with much guidance on such aesthetic issues which, the report asserts, “could result in a loss of CBD character.”
With that in mind, the committee recommended that Rye “retain a consultant to develop guidelines that show architectural and building design considerations preferred and discouraged in the CBD.”
But with the city set to elect a new mayor in November, while in the midst of searching for a permanent city manager, and poised to begin a multi-year comprehensive planning process, Miller suggested now was not the time.
Multiple council members suggested that developing such guidelines could be tied into the comprehensive planning process.
