Maitland looks to marketing to drive development

The city of Maitland’s staff members have marketing on their minds, as they work to drive development interest by drafting selling-point plans and try to clean up cumbersome building codes.

With the city’s downtown zoning district remaining relatively untouched since it was signed into existence 18 months ago by the City Council, Maitland staff is hoping a clear, concise marketing plan can help generate new development interest.

“It’s defining how Maitland wants to present itself to the rest of the world,” Community Redevelopment Agency director Verl Emrick said.

The plan, he said, will ideally offer developers, new businesses and residents a one-stop way to find out what Maitland can offer them – from incentives to schools, parks to available properties.

Whether that be an all-inclusive mobile phone app, or a hardcopy directory, Emrick said he and the other members of the CRA Board are working on a proposal for the best way to market Maitland to present to the City Council by mid-December.

Meanwhile, Mayor Howard Schieferdecker has proposed his own plans to help make Maitland a more developer-friendly city by cleaning up duplicate land development codes.

On Nov. 11, the City Council approved allowing the mayor to form a Comprehensive Development Plan Committee to assess what duplicities exist between the city’s Land Development Code (LDC) and the state-governed Comprehensive Development Plan (CDP).

In some of these instances of duplication, Scheiferdecker said, the LDC will offer the flexibility of variances, but is trumped the rigid standards in the CDP, which can hinder developments from going forward. By editing or removing these items from the CDP, Schieferdecker said it would give the city the ability to vet things through its LDC and more ways to work with developers to make their projects a reality.

“We are limiting our ability to be flexible with developments that come before us,” he said, adding that the city should have the right to determine if a development will work – not the state.

But Community Development Director Dick Wells said that everything in the current CDP was put there for a reason with the input of staff and residents, because they felt strongly that those codes should exist and not easily be changed.

“If a development comes in and wants a relaxation on the number and can’t get it – is that a bad thing or is it a bad development? Is our [CDP] bad or is the development plan bad because we can’t conform?”

Councilwoman Linda Frosch blamed the CDP, answering that changes have to be made or in 20 years City Hall will still be looking down at an empty, decrepit Winn-Dixie. She said the city needs the flexibility to hear developers out and work with them to rebuild downtown.

Councilwoman Joy Goff-Marcil was the lone dissenting vote against revising the codes.

The CDP Committee held its first meeting Nov. 13 and will meet again Dec. 3 from 3 to 4:30 p.m. in Council Chambers discussing duplicate codes referencing height, open space, pervious space and setbacks.