The council issued a statement Friday responding to a letter read during its meeting Wednesday that is critical of recent actions and policies that business people say endanger their livelihoods.

More than 60 business people and leaders signed the letter, including former Mayor Mike Fields, former Councilwoman Marquita Daniels, Bill Smith, George Little, Susan Clift Brown, Jamie Boles and Bill Saunders.

The letter says the Town Council is “micromanaging” architectural plan reviews for new commercial business developments, setting unreasonable standards by requiring exterior walls to be brick. It also disputes spending money to hire consultants to study commercial development issues. The letter asks the town to give business people a voice in the process.

“It is certainly not the intent of this council or overall organization to be adversarial or unwelcoming to either new or existing businesses within the community,” the statement said. “To the contrary, the town has released building permits for five new commercial structures since July 1 of this year in addition to having reviewed and approved all architectural plans for a number of others.

The council always planned to invite “a number of stakeholders to the table for this important process,” referring to its intent to include business people.

One of the problems with the current architectural plan review process is that the existing code was written to rely “heavily on the subjective determination of a structure's ‘harmonious' fit into the existing surroundings,” the council said.

The town's outside consultant is reviewing it and is to recommend improvements in the code to “better define what makes a structure ‘in harmony' throughout various areas of the town, thus clarifying community expectations.

Developers will probably spend less money on doing preliminary designs and making fewer changes because the code will have a “clearer initial direction” written into it, the council statement says.

Former Councilwoman Marquita Daniels said the architectural plan review process is the most irksome thing for a business person. Daniels owns the Daniels Co., a building contractor.

Daniels said that since former Town Manager Kyle Sonnenberg resigned his position with Southern Pines, the council has been handling review of architectural plans as a body instead of having the staff do it.

Daniels also mentioned the moratorium the council imposed on apartment complexes to give the town time to develop new zoning standards intended to prevent more large-scale complexes from being built. The new regulations require that new apartments be several hundred feet apart.

Several business people who own and manage rental property, such as Greg Zywocinski and Gregg Allen, were upset initially because it appeared that they would be unable to rebuild units if they were damaged by fire or had to be replaced because they didn't meet the new requirements. Both signed the letter. The council did amend the ordinance to ease that problem.

Antique shop owner Mary Mc-Keithen said she had no problems when she and her husband, Jere, went through the council architectural review process in getting renovations adding a second story approved for their existing building on Broad Street.

McPeake agrees with the need for an architectural code, except for a detail here or there. McPeake praised the town for “at least having a vision for the future and trying to set some standards, that protect the property owners who invest in Southern Pines.

McPeake's family business, McPeake Hotels Inc., does have large investments in The Belvedere, one of the largest commercial buildings in Southern Pines, three commercial buildings rented to shops along West Pennsylvania and the South Bonnet Street block and The Hampton Inn on U.S. 1.

She said she has spent a lot on renovating her new properties, requiring her to deal with town planning and zoning staffers, whose work she said is professional and helpful to her.

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