The city of Mason is postponing consideration of a total rewrite of its zoning ordinance to next year, when new City Council members are in office.
City Council members voted unanimously Monday to push the timeline back at the recommendation of the planning commission.
A special committee established in 2021 has been preparing possible amendments that would affect every part of the ordinance. Work has been underway in earnest for about two years.
The project has taken on new significance as the city grapples with how to regulate potential data center developments.
No Data Centers in Mason organizer Paula Caltrider said the delay presents an opportunity for activists, with five City Council seats up for grabs in November.
“I think they know they’ve lost the narrative, and that people are seeing the double talk, you know, seeing them say one thing but then do another thing with their actions,” Caltrider said. “So, you know, maybe it’s caught up with them.”
The audience at Monday’s meeting cheered when City Council members voted to delay consideration.
But City Manager Deborah Stuart said members of the public have given mixed messages.
“Last meeting, if you watched public comment,” Stuart said, “we heard from at least five or six people saying, ‘Where is the ordinance at? Why haven’t we seen it? Why isn’t it being proposed? Why haven’t you done the zoning ordinance?’ So we worked hard to get this out and do this, and now, ‘it’s being rushed.’”
Stuart said she hopes people will keep an open mind when the ordinance is introduced.
“It is a pretty dramatic change to our ordinance,” Stuart said. “And I say that purposefully, because I know the data center is the high, controversial item. But the rest of the ordinance is really reactive to a lot of the feedback we got even last meeting.”
She said the portions pertaining to data centers – including a provision making data centers a special use requiring approval by the planning commission, rather than a use by right, something activists had sought to implement – could be considered separately from the rest of the ordinance.
Other changes would aim to streamline things for small businesses and address other long-talked-about issues like parking restrictions.
The city is also in the process of hiring a new attorney to begin in January as Thomas Hitch, the current city attorney, plans to retire at the end of the year.
Hitch said in a legal opinion the city does not have the ability to decline land if it is annexed by the State Boundary Commission.
But Caltrider said the new attorney could reconsider that legal opinion.
Mayor Russell Whipple said the city could designate a member to tell the State Boundary Commission they don’t want the land while it collects public input.
“I’m just curious how that’d be taken, because I believe one of the things that’s being lost here is that one of the, obviously, the biggest beneficiary of an annexation is the property owner,” Whipple said. “Their land suddenly becomes more valuable automatically because of its access to municipal services. And I think the Boundary Commission’s rules are set up first to protect those rights, and then secondarily everything else.”
