The Wilmington Planning Commission will give the public a second chance to speak on a proposal to invite breweries into the city’s development code.
Commission Chairwoman Deb Hays announced the plan late Wednesday afternoon–setting a public hearing for the commission’s Aug. 6 meeting–at the end of a workshop that helped commissioners in attendance better understand the plan on the table. The last time it came up for a vote, commissioners hit the brakes and demanded further study.
Among clarifications Wednesday: the amount of beer different sizes of breweries might produce–an area of concern for commissioners as it relates to truck traffic, “something we knew would be raised,” said Phil Prete, a senior city planner who has led the proposal’s development.
It would define a microbrewery, for instance, as not exceeding 25,000 square feet. At its most productive, a brewery that max size would only be able to brew about 25,000 barrels per year, Prete said. He cited the Brewers Association, a national industry group, for his number.
That full-steam rate of production would bring about 1.5 large trucks per day, he said.
And a small regional brewery, which the city proposes to define as not exceeding 75,000 square feet, would at its most robust produce 75,000 barrels a year, with about five trucks loaded up per day, said Prete. (He said the Brewers Association estimated a need of 1 to 2 square feet per barrel of production.)
Assistant Planning Director Ron Satterfield noted as well that downtown is accustomed to some level of trailer truck traffic per the numerous restaurants and bars in service there today.
Story: Planning commission holds off on brewery rules
The planning staff is only recommending regulation of breweries by their physical size, that helping to determine where in the city they could reasonably locate. A microbrewery, for instance, would be allowed in the Central Business District (CBD) if these regulations passed.
At a previous planning commission meeting, member Bruce McGuire suggested regulating them by barrels per year, a suggestion echoed in a letter to the commission from E.W. Merritt Jr. of development-vision group Wilmington City Progress Inc.
Merritt, the group’s CEO, said several other cities, including Asheville, indeed regulate by volume.
“All breweries have to report their production to the state and federal governments and pay a tax on each gallon or barrel they produce,” Merritt wrote in his letter dated Wednesday. “It would not be difficult for the city to require that copies of those reports be provided so that it can be verified that they are not in violation.”
Prete, who had not seen Merritt’s letter, has said numerous times the city doesn’t have the staff the monitor and verify beer production levels.
Commission member McGuire had also previously suggested imposing a special-use permit requirement for any breweries wanting to open up in Wilmington’s CBD, which covers downtown.
Merritt backed that up as well.
“In the CBD, there are no minimum parking requirements,” he wrote. “In light of that, we feel that any microbrewery over 10,000 [square feet] in size should be considered a special use.”
The city’s planning staff isn’t recommending that, either, Prete said Wednesday (though not in response to Merritt’s letter). For perspective, he said the city’s current rules allow any size of nightclub downtown without a special-use permit.
Background: City discusses accommodations for craft brewing scene
The planning commission’s Aug. 6 meeting will begin at 6 p.m. in the main meeting chambers of Wilmington City Hall (102 N. Third St.). The public hearing would be the second held on the topic, not counting a public input session held in May.
“The participants that we had at the public input meeting were overwhelmingly supportive” of the proposal, said Prete.
Currently, the city’s development code doesn’t recognize breweries at all. The change would, essentially, give prospective brewers a proper framework to follow, rather than trip through today’s planning regulations that weren’t written with them in mind.
Recusals
Although Wednesday’s workshop was essentially the result of McGuire’s questions, the commission on Wednesday voted to recuse him–and fellow commission member Paul Boney–from voting on the topic.
No specific reason aired; Hays simply referred to a “personal attachment” they had.
If the planning commission votes to approve the regulations Aug. 6, they will go to Wilmington City Council for final consideration.
Ben Brown is a news reporter at Port City Daily. Reach him at [email protected] or (910) 772-6335. On Twitter: @benbrownmedia
