“We need a statistically reliable survey, done in such a way that is demographically reliable,” Mayor Steven Smith said during a steering committee meeting last week. “Do we really understand what the whole citizenry wants, or do we just understand what people who are willing to come to a meeting want? We are missing constituencies.
“We are here to plan for the good of the whole village, not for the good of people who come to our meetings.”
The turnout at a series of public information forums on various topics related to the planning process, which ended in June, was good for the first few meetings, and then it started to dwindle.
Mayor Pro Tem George Hillier said it would be “a mistake for us not to have a survey, to have spent all the money we have spent and not get that missing piece.”
Lou Clay, chairman of the village Planning and Zoning Board, said, “You always have that segment of society not comfortable coming to a meeting. A telephone survey hears from that population.”
The Village Council must approve paying the additional expense of conducting the phone survey. If the council approves, the survey could begin in early September.
Glen Chalder, a consultant with Connecticut-based Planimetrics that is helping draft the plan, said he could arrange for an outside company to do the telephone survey for an additional $15,000. The village contracted with Planimetrics for $155,000 to develop the plan. That amount does not include conducting a telephone survey.
Chalder told The Pilot that randomly surveying 400 households will provide a statistically accurate picture of what residents want in the plan.
Smith said some groups have volunteered to do the survey. But Chalder said it would be better to have the survey done by professionals with expertise in how to word questions and analyze the responses.
Beth Kocher, who represents Pinehurst Resort on the steering committee, supported the idea of doing a survey.
“We’ve found it to be useful,” she said. “It ties in the younger community.”
During the series of public information forums most people attending were older residents.
Taking the additional step of doing the survey would serve to unify the steering committee and give it confidence in the final draft recommended to the Village Council, Chalder said.
Chalder said he would present a list of proposed questions to be included in the telephone survey at the committee’s next meeting Aug. 13.
The steering committee has begun providing input for Chalder to prepare the draft of the long-range comprehensive plan.
On Wednesday, the committee agreed to delay consideration of several items, such as proposing that the village adopt a maintenance code and spell out population growth restrictions, until the Aug. 13 meeting. The committee will meet with David Owens of the N.C. Institute of Government, who will advise the committee on what can be done under North Carolina law.
Some of the proposals being discussed by the committee could be contentious, such as the possibility of recommending that the council eliminate certain minimum square footage requirements in some zoning districts, which have led to disproportionately sized homes on small or oddly shaped lots.
“I’d rather see a well-designed home with character even if it is 1,400 square feet, than one fulfilling the minimum requirement of 1,800 square feet on small lots, which forces large, two-story ungainly houses,” Smith said.
Howard Warren, a member of the Planning and Zoning Board, said the existing square footage requirements “are not doing what we want, in some cases forcing a two-story structure where a two-story structure is not good. We will be working on revisions to the requirement.”
Ninety-two percent of the homes in Pinehurst are one-story, said Planning Director Andrea Correll. The “scale of homes is not proportionate to the neighborhood” in some cases, she said.
Lots already platted by Diamondhead Corp. are often “strangely shaped lots, forcing homes to go up and create a blister in the neighborhood,” Correll said.
There are “a lot of things that need to be changed in the Planned Development Ordinance,” she said. “Can we make it better by changing it?”
In some cases, she said, the proximity to golf courses and setback requirements force homes to be built closer to the street.
The committee has reached a consensus on a number of points that should be included in the draft plan. Those include:
n Acquiring land in the extraterritorial jurisdiction area for future recreational facilities.
n Classifying Morganton Road as a neighborhood road to protect it from potential widening and disruption of its character.
n Support a road system that diverts non-Pinehurst traffic, including a future bypass that could be added to the Southern Moore Transportation Plan. That bypass corridor could run from N.C. 211 near West End to N.C. 5 between Aberdeen and Pinehurst.
n Establish a greenway trail system and consider writing ordinances to keep low-density developments but provide for clustering of homes to allow for open spaces in residential developments.
n Protect the existing character of N.C. 5, N.C. 2 (Midland Road), Morganton Road and Linden Road. On the widening of N.C. 211, DOT should include planted median strips and underground walkways.
n Control the Pinehurst water system, possibly by holding a majority of the seats on a regional water authority board of directors, and explore ways to diversify water sources, including obtaining surface water from adjacent areas in addition to more wells.
