REHOBOTH BEACH -- Rehoboth Beach's mixed-use zoning ordinance task force held its inaugural meeting Thursday. City leaders said the task force will look at potential ways to update the city's zoning code to better regulate mixed-use lots.
One mixed-use lot already in the city is Ocean Gallery. Employee Neal Scott said the bottom floor is a store, while the top floor has a living space.
"The people are very friendly upstairs and they all get along very well," Scott said. "It's just a great spot to be close to the beach and also get a business below as well."
Scott told WBOC that one of his co-workers lives above the shop.
"She can basically just come down from her house and go down to work, and then vice versa, so it's just such a compatible thing," Scott said.
That example of mixed-use zoning could someday apply to more buildings throughout the city.
"We're looking to encourage commercial on the first floor and different types of housing on the second floor," Mary Ellen Gray, Director of Planning and Community Development, said.
Gray said the task force will address blind spots the city's current code has for zoning mixed-use lots.
"I think mixed-use lots encourage live, work, play, in a community," Gray said. "Also, for a community like Rehoboth, it encourages year-round use."
Nick Walls is a vice president with the Wallace Montgomery consulting firm working on the project with city leaders. Walls said the updates will hopefully allow for more affordable housing in the city.
"There's a deficit in our housing supply in the city for the people who are working in our restaurants, in our various shops," Walls said. "They have to leave the city in order to live somewhere. We want to encourage the opposite."
Walls told WBOC that preserving the current character of the city is also a big concern for the task force.
"We don't want to create streets that feel like you're walking down a vertical constraining column," Walls said.
City leaders said the task force is expected to meet again sometime in March. They said they hope to have a draft mixed-use zoning ordinance by the end of the year. City officials said the public is encouraged to attend the meetings to give their input.