If the Aberdeen Board of Commissioners has its way, single family homes will be the only zoning designation not covered by a proposed landscape ordinance.

Town Planner Giles Hopkins presented a draft of a proposed landscape ordinance Thursday that would be much tougher than the one currently on the books. The wording of the proposed ordinance presently exempts single family homes and duplexes from falling under the auspices of the ordinance.

However, several board members felt that duplexes should be subject to the same landscape restrictions that would affect all other zoning applications.

“I don’t think we should make an exception for duplexes,” Commissioner Pat Ann McMurray said. “Everybody knows that most duplexes are generally commercially owned property anyway.”

Town Manager Tony Robertson said that he felt many towns included exempted duplexes, along with single-family homes, because of concerns that the landscaping requirements would drive prospective homebuyers and renters away.

But both Robertson and Commissioner Robert Farrell argued that this reasoning is no longer true in today’s economy, especially in Aberdeen.

“I’ve always said if someone decides against living in your town because of a landscape ordinance then they weren’t really serious about moving there anyway,” Farrell said. “And the conversations I’ve had with local realtors reassures me that this will not be a problem.”

Three Proposals

At Thursday’s meeting, the commissioners received copies of three different proposed landscape ordinances to take home and study.

The three ordinances included one drawn up by The Hayter Firm in Pinehurst, a copy of the landscape ordinance for the town of Southern Pines, and a copy of a landscape ordinance drafted by Hopkins.

Aberdeen’s current landscape and buffering ordinance has been described as inadequate by various members of the town’s government and “unenforceable” by Town Attorney Michael Brough.

Brough has been working with Robertson and Hopkins on an improved and revised version of the ordinance for several months.

Hopkins described his latest version of the landscape ordinance as a “simpler” plan than what the commissioners have seen so far.

Under the plan proposed by Hopkins, a formula would be used to decide how many trees and other buffering plants must be included in zoning requests made by builders.

For example, a property with a 100-foot frontage would be required to plant three trees on that frontage that would eventually attain a height of at least 30 feet.

These trees would have to be at least eight feet in height at the time they are planted and have a “caliper” or diameter of at least 3 inches. This formula calls for one tree every 30 feet.

The “formula” also requires an additional understory tree — a tree less than 30 feet in eventual height — every 100 square feet.

“We wouldn’t tell them exactly where to put them (the trees),” Hopkins said. “But we would want to make sure they place them in an attractive, orderly manner before we approved the plan.”

The commissioners were in agreement that they would eventually like to have all landscaping and buffering reviews handled by the town’s planning and inspections office, rather than coming before the board for review.

Farrell said that he is “not a landscape engineer” and doesn’t have the expertise to make decision about landscape placement or approval. Commissioner Art Parker seconded Farrell’s summation.

Language Added

“I want to get out of the approving these things, “ Parker said. “I want to give Giles more room to work with. But we need to make this ordinance as complete as possible because 99 percent of people are going to do the bare minimum and walk anyway.”

The board also discussed adding language that would address the landscaping around all four sides of a proposed building.

The ordinance in its current form does not put restrictions on the landscaping in the rear of a proposed building.

Mayor Betsy Mofield said she doesn’t “see anything wrong with telling them what to have on all four sides of their building.”