Driveway fiascos

It'll take me a little bit to sift through it, but via the tipline I've received some information on an upcoming proposal from Athens-Clarke County staff regarding some tweaks to the community's ordinances covering driveways. As I understand it, the proposal is still being honed by the Public Works Department and is currently undergoing a period of public comment.

The ordinance, in its current proposed form, has the potential to create a whole lot of problems, particularly this section ...

(3) When one or more of the following conditions exists, a driveway permit is required:

a. When a previously undeveloped property is being developed;

b. When an existing development is being reconstructed or redeveloped. This condition shall not include interior changes;

c. When property is changing from one use to another according to Title 9 (Zoning and Development Standards);

d. When an existing driveway is no longer considered adequate for property usage due to a change in the use on the property thereby causing higher than originally designed for traffic volume, or has, since installation, become a hazard to the safety of area traffic the owner/developer/contractor is required to apply for a driveway permit;

e. For non-single family residential properties, any additional structural or site improvement square footage added to an existing structure or site improvement that is greater than ten percent of the existing building square footage for structural improvements or ten percent of the existing site improvement square footage for site improvements.

(4) Upon application for a driveway permit for either a new driveway or an existing driveway, all existing driveways to be retained that are not in conformance with this ordinance and current standards shall be brought into compliance at the expense of the applicant.

There are numerous concerns here. For starters, we have vague language regarding 3a as an 'existing development' has no stated definition, nor does 'reconstructed' or 'redeveloped.' Presumably the former would include all types of structures, including single-family residential units.

The latter might have the intention - though I can't say this for sure - of referring only to significant renovative work on a property aimed at a resale or it might be focused on significant rehabilitation, but that's not obvious from the existing language. It could just as well mean that the installation of a new roof would trigger the permit process.

The point is it's not terribly clear, and ordinances and legislation ought to be as clear as possible.

What is more clear, but nonetheless of concern, is 3e which requires all non-single family units undergoing a 10 percent improvement - say the owner adds office space or puts in a pool for tenants or builds a deck for a duplex - then a permit must be issued for a new driveway that meets the ordinance.

Because right now, driveways that don't meet the existing distance requirements were probably grandfathered in prior to the existing regulations. However, the proposed ordinance would mean that if your driveway does not meet the requirements, yet you wish to renovate your property, you must also tack on the costly expense of ensuring that your driveway now meets existing code.

This seems, to me at least, rather stupid.

That's kind of a blunt assessment and, to be fair, it's only in response to a soon-to-be-proposed ordinance that is still be fine-tuned. Still, there's time to fix this thing up a little more, and here's hoping the Public Works Department offers more clarity and less unintended punishment.