Jefferson County has combined three planning entities into a single board.
At its Mar. 11 meeting, the County Commission voted to merge the Planning Board, Zoning Commission and Board of Adjustment into a new Consolidated Land Use Board.
The functions of the three boards historically have overlapped: A planning board is meant generally to plan for a community’s future; a zoning commission recommends changes to zoning regulations, and a board of adjustment is empowered to make certain exceptions to those regulations.
In practice, said Commissioner Cory Kirsch, the Zoning Commission and the Board of Adjustments have met only infrequently, and neither currently has any members. The merger, the County Commission reasoned, will make it easier to fill board seats.
The Commission appointed all the current Planning Board members — Chair Arica Klapan, Christina Binkowski, Diane Fitzgerald, Ryan Werner, Mike Ferriter, Roy Mulvaney and Susan Pullman — to serve on the Land Use Board, which was set to meet for the first time on Apr. 8.
