photo by: Eric Ayres

Members of the Wheeling Planning Commission, from left, Bill Lanham, Bill Schwarz and Jeremy West, listed at a meeting Tuesday night during a review of a draft for the city's 10-year Comprehensive Plan update.

While Wheeling’s zoning code will remain in place through the process of updating the city’s 10-year comprehensive plan, terminology regarding land use designations has been tweaked in the Wheeling Forward 2034 draft to more clearly show areas with more flexibility for potential uses.

Members of the Wheeling Planning Commission met on Tuesday night to review a draft of the comprehensive plan update. The planning commission members are expected to make adjustments and review suggestions for changes over the next month before voting to recommend the 142-page document during their December meeting.

Once the recommendation to approve moves forward, the comprehensive plan draft will receive a first reading during the Dec. 17 meeting of Wheeling City Council and will be adopted during council’s first meeting in January.

For more than a year, the city has been working with Pittsburgh-based consulting firm Evolve to develop the new 10-year plan, which describes a community’s vision for the future and provides a roadmap to make that vision become a reality. Christine Mondor, principal of Evolve, was on hand Tuesday night to help guide commissioners through the comprehensive draft. Required by West Virginia code to be updated by cities every 10 years, a comprehensive plan is used as a guide to inform future land use regulations and help cultivate growth and development for the next decade.

“This does not change the zoning code,” Wheeling Building and Planning Director B.J. Delbert explained. “That still would have to go through council. It’s just how we’d make recommendations if somebody would approach us about a zone change or if businesses would want to come in.”

One point of interest raised by commission members about the proposed update is the distinction of several different mixed-use land use designations, which include Downtown, Urban, Neighborhood, Village and Corridor mixed-use areas. The designations cover different zones that may be zoned as commercial, but can accommodate certain retail or residential uses.

“The delineation of mixed-use is more robust than the current, more general language,” Delbert said. “But it’s also new to have those different types of mixed uses and definitions. “Residential is allowed in commercial use, for example, this just articulates it more clearly.

“I also believe the thinking has changed with mixed-use of having commercial first floor and residential above. We’re seeing that a lot downtown.”

Delbert said potential developers may be dissuaded away from commercial properties after looking at a zoning map without understanding that it is, in fact, a mixed-use area.

Wheeling City Councilman Ben Seidler, a new member of the planning commission who did not attend Tuesday’s meeting, had stressed that he did not agree with the new map that showed a large chunk of Wheeling Island as mixed-use. Seidler, who lives on Wheeling Island and represents the Ward 2 neighborhood, suggested that the north end of the island be designated as residential.

Although designations in the comprehensive plan may change, the city zoning remains the same. Any future zone change requests, however, would be guided by compliance to the vision outlined in the new comprehensive plan.

Members of the public are invited to review and provide comments and suggestions on the draft, which is available on the city’s website by clicking “Departments, Building and Planning, Comprehensive Plan” and finding the link under “Phase Four” titled “Public Comment Draft.”