Residents’ concerns nix conditional zoning in Oriental Oriental’s five zoning districts would double overnight, if conditional zoning were adopted. Each existing zone would suddenly have an alter-ego, known as a ‘parallel district.’ The controversial proposal was tabled  by a unanimous vote of the Oriental town board, but the measure may return for consideration early next year.

Conditional zoning for Oriental is unconditionally dead -- at least until a long-range plan for the town is completed sometime early next year.

Elected officials voted unanimously to table the concept, although the matter is likely to be revisited in early January after a promised ‘master’ plan for the waterfront community has been prepared.

Most of those who addressed the town board Tuesday night questioned the planning technique. The session was actually a continuation of a public hearing begun last month when opponents packed the Town Hall.

The failure to act comes as a snub for the five-member all-volunteer planning board and for Mayor Bill Sage, both of whom have pushed hard for adoption.

Sage told a skeptical audience that conditional zoning was “another tool for the town’s toolbox.” He said re-zonings “can be requested and can be granted at any time,” frequently opening up properties to the “widest possible array of uses.”

Re-zoning with stringent, rock solid conditions, he argued, would give the town leverage to obligate a property owner to a specific land use.

Should that use end, Sage explained, the property would revert to its original zoning -- a mandate not currently available under the town’s existing laws.

Bob Miller, a town resident who serves on the planning board, agreed with Sage. He called it “a way of re-zoning without allowing every (possible) use. Now, the only options we have are to either rezone it, or say no.”

And, Miller predicted, the town’s leaders would be unlikely to approve any request for conditional zoning of a property unless residents of the surrounding neighborhoods were largely supportive.

But opponents remained skeptical.

Hodges Street resident Jacksie Pitts, who also spoke against the proposal in July, was adamant.

“I think all of us here are pretty happy living beside our neighbors in a part of town where we don’t have people coming and going, with car doors opening and closing, and all that,” she said.

Linda Zielinski asked “how much of an objection it might take” from neighbors to persuade town planners to nix a request for conditional zoning. Her implication was that town officials would be under no obligation to reject a conditional zoning request even in the face of local opposition -- a hypothetical situation that Sage agreed could happen.

“Do we end up having a large wedding hall sitting there empty?” Barbara Sparks asked, suggesting the town might acquiesce on stringent enforcement of conditions, should a specific land use fail.

Bill Arndt and George Smith seemed to speak for many, in offering the evening’s best sound bites.

“This is being shoved down our throats,” observed Arndt, as Smith added: “This is specifically designed to overturn the intent of our existing planning ordinances.”

But, former commissioner Barb Venturi, lobbied for adoption. She nodded at a map of the town with the five zoning districts depicted in unique colors.

“You see those red spots,” she warned, referring to the town’s heavy industrial, ‘multi-use’ areas --

now occupied mostly by various marinas. “They present (potential) problems because they can become anything.”

Bob Seifert, on the other hand seemed the represent the room’s prevailing sentiments.

“I can’t imagine moving into a zoning district that would have  it (conditional zoning),” he said. “It could drastically affect property values.”

Longtime resident Grace Evans, who for many years served as a volunteer on the town’s planning board, cautioned a go-slow approach.

“By and large, people are comfortable with what we’ve got now,” she said.

Should the controversial issue return for consideration, Oriental leaders will have to toe a fine line. Most acknowledge that conditional zoning is a legislated end run around illegal ‘spot zoning’ -- defined as the re-zoning of a single parcel, or small area, if the purpose is to benefit a specific group instead of implementing the professed objectives of an overall plan.

The mayor’s wife, Dee, is leading a committee that has vowed to come up with such a comprehensive plan by early next year. The first meeting of her group is set for Thursday, Aug. 7, at 6 p.m.