Divided Smithfield council restricts multifamily

SMITHFIELD — No one mentioned the suspicion that Mayor Andy Moore wanted multifamily removed from a zoning category because he opposed townhouses near his home.

But that cloud hung over the meeting, first in the town manager’s statement that he had sought the zoning category change even though a staffer, in a Planning Board member, said Moore had done so.

“The staff made this request at my request,” Michael Scott said.

Possible townhouses in the mayor’s neighborhood were not a consideration in his request, the town manager said. An economic development study had made “clear that Smithfield needed land to devote to new and expanding businesses and Smithfield needed to prioritize this need,” Scott said.

No one told the Planning Board that, said member Mark Lane. “The only thing that has been told to us is multifamily needs to come out of B-3,” he said, referring to the town’s highway entrance zoning district.

And no one told the Planning Board that the Town Council could still look favorably on multifamily in B-3 if the town’s land-use plan recommended it, Lane said. “That would have saved us a lot of time and a lot of headache if we had just known exactly what was meant,” he said.

Instead, Planning Board members and others were suspicious.

“I feel there’s more to the story than what we really know,” said Teresa Daughtry, a real estate agent.

Debbie Howard, a Planning Board member and real estate agent, called for delaying action on removing multifamily from B-3 until the town could hear from B-3 property owners, Realtors and others. “I truly feel that anyone with an interest in this matter should be given the opportunity to consider this,” she said.

Howard wanted to know why the rush. “Let us know why we need to do this so quickly and why we cannot come together and try and figure out something that would be informative to all the owners of B-3,” she said.

Daughtry said many young homebuyers today prefer the maintenance-free living of townhouses, which also have the benefit of being more affordable than single-family homes. “I understand that some don’t want to live in multifamily or some don’t want to have these houses close by,” she said. “But the generation that’s coming in is not the same generation that I live in.”

By restricting multifamily, the council was making it harder for young people to call Smithfield home, Daughtry said. “Your children and your grandchildren are the ones you want to stay in Smithfield, but we’re running them out of our town, we’re running them out of our county,” she said.

Daughtry called on the council to consider not simply what it thinks is best but what the community wants.

That hit the mayor the wrong way. “It’s absolutely our job to do what we think is in the best interest of this town,” he said. “That is what we are elected to do.”

“Not just one segment, not just one industry,” Moore added in an apparent dig at real estate interests, “but what is best for the entire town.”

And it’s in the town’s best interest to reserve land along its entranceways for businesses to serve the many new rooftops under construction, Moore said. “That is what this is about — protecting our business property for business,” he said.

The mayor had allies in his argument.

Councilman David Barbour pointed to the many businesses that had once called his West Smithfield district home — Kmart, Heilig-Meyers Furniture, Wendy’s, Eckerd drugs, Pizza Hut, First Citizens Bank and Woodall’s, a department store.

“None of those are there anymore,” he said. “None.”

“We’ll never see West Smithfield return to the place of the past if we continue to use our B-3 areas for residential housing,” Barbour added.

Since 2019, some 70% of approved dwelling units in Smithfield have been multifamily, noted Councilman Sloan Stevens.

Councilman Roger Wood, another West Smithfield resident, said no one had complained to him about a shortage of multifamily housing. “I don’t hear anything about multifamily,” he said. “I do hear, ‘When are we going to get another grocery store? When are we going to get more restaurants? When are we going to get more businesses to shop?’ ”

“We’ve said it many times,” Wood said. “If you bring the rooftops, the retail will come. If you don’t have any retail space, they can’t come.”

Councilman John Dunn joined Barbour, Stevens and Wood in voting to remove multifamily housing as a permitted use in B-3. Councilmen Marlon Lee, Steve Rabil and Travis Scott opposed the move.

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