While the main responsibility for St. John’s principal planner will be taking care of development issues, he will also be working long-term with other Planning and Natural Resources staff on improvements for all three islands, which Gov. John deJongh Jr. said this week could be the first step on the road to a comprehensive land- and water-use plan.
The hiring of the planner, who is expected to join the ranks of DPNR within the next month or so, was announced during this week’s State of the Territory Address. In a follow-up press conference Tuesday, deJongh said he wanted to get the planner on board before even thinking about moving forward with a land- and water-use plan, which has been talked about for decades, but has never materialized.
After dealing with St. John, the planner will "mesh" with existing DPNR staff to cover all three islands, focusing on areas such as Main Street on St. Thomas, along with Christiansted and Frederiksted on St. Croix, deJongh said.
Meanwhile, the government will be submitting a number of amendments aimed at streamlining the territory’s zoning and subdivision laws, working off a study commissioned by DPNR and completed last year by Rutgers University professor Stuart Meck and Marya Morris of Chicago-based Duncan Associates.
The two consultants have said it took them months to pore over sections of the V.I. Code and bring together pieces of the zoning laws that were scattered all over the books. What came out of a years’ worth of research was an 84-page document that Meck has said would modernize the code, revise its definitions and create a set of objectives that deal specifically with the territory and its people.
Some of the more practical suggestions include: setting clear guidelines for new construction, including height and occupancy guidelines; and developing a mission statement and development standards for each zoning district.
Another suggestion includes creating a planning commission, made up of local residents to act as a buffer between DPNR and the Legislature on zoning matters. Many states have them, and without one, there is no real way for local residents to have any input, the consultants have said.
Many residents have said that conducting the study and thoroughly revising the laws to deal with some outstanding and somewhat controversial issues — such as property rights — would definitely help to get a land- and water-use proposal on the table.
DeJongh seemed to agree, saying Tuesday that once the planner was on board and the zoning amendments were on the books, it would be easier to craft such a document.
"We’ll see how it goes," he said. "But I didn’t want us to start to look at it until the planner had started and the amendments were taken care of."
