After a week of public engagement on the future of Rehoboth Beach’s zoning code, a group of consultants working with the city is able to offer some early thoughts on potential changes to zoning laws.
Last week, Joseph Kohl and a team from Miami-based Dover, Kohl, and Partners were in Rehoboth for a week of sessions with residents and business owners to take their pulse on the type of development they want to see in the future. Hundreds of residents turned out to express their opinions during the week.
Speaking to commissioners on Friday, Kohl summed up what his team heard, and stressed the need to focus on design, not just land use.
“We're more interested in the form of the building because we know in older cities, buildings change,” he said. “If the building is nice and worthy of saving, many of which you have already, we know already they've been changing use over time.”
One tool the city already has at its disposal is its architectural manual, which lays out guidelines for how buildings should look to match the character of the city.
“For residential architecture, it is really good, and for the commercial, it's saying all the right things, but there hasn't been a whole lot of great examples to be able to point to,” he said. “And so I think that's part of the reaction to what folks are saying about downtown - it looks messy.”
While it will take some time to turn resident input into actionable recommendations for zoning changes, Kohl was able to offer a few early observations. One idea he floated was having a list of architectural details, like stoops, porches, or galleries. New buildings would then have to incorporate one or more of those details into their construction.
Kohl also suggested the city look into infill, putting buildings into vacant areas in and around downtown.
“If we could fill in the gaps in there, then the streets themselves become a little bit more walkable and livable,” he explained.
Kohl also offered ideas on how the city could encourage mixed use development, like residential spaces on the upper floors of storefronts.
“We haven't met anyone yet that's come in and says, ‘we want to do condominiums here or we want to do a lot of residential,’” Kohl said. “There may be some, but we have heard from the store owner, business owners, that we really need some workforce housing in there.”
How to get more of that housing would require some possibly unpopular changes to the current code when it comes to parking.
“For the existing regulations for mixed-use, and the reason why we're not getting it, is that you have to provide two spaces per dwelling unit,” Kohl said. He recommended reducing or even doing away with that requirement.
Rehoboth commissioners were generally supportive of the work done so far. Commissioner Mark Saunders said he was a skeptic at first.
“I was a big eye roll,” he said. “I thought, ‘all right, these experts are going to come, they're going to tell us what we already know,’ and I thought that right up until this week. And now I have to apologize and say you told us a lot that I didn't know.”
Commissioner Suzanne Goode, who was unable to attend any of last week’s public sessions due to a previously scheduled trip, remained skeptical about eliminating parking requirements. She also opposed drawing workforce housing to the downtown area.
“I believe that this effort will depress home values for those of us up here on the board and in the gallery who invested in Rehoboth Beach to feel as though the surrounding development is consistent with our lifestyle,” she said.
Goode also criticized the project’s price tag, some $157,000, although Commissioner Chris Galanty noted that it was a fraction of a percent of the city’s overall budget.
Kohl and his team are expected to have a first draft of potential code changes for commissioners to review in September, with a final draft based on commissioners’ feedback coming in October.
