Zoning ordinance revision ready for supervisors

Public hearing attracts few

By Amy Boucher

     INDEPENDENCE – After controversy over the zoning ordinance that half-filled the Grayson County High School auditorium in January, only four people spoke for ten minutes Tuesday night about the comprehensive revision ordered by the county Board of Supervisors. The county Planning Commission voted unanimously to recommend the revision to the supervisors, who will hold a public hearing on the zoning law at 7 p.m. May 8.

The January meeting brought out supporters and foes of zoning, many of whom spoke during a lengthy public comment period after Wilson District Supervisor Glen “Eddie” Rosenbaum proposed repealing the zoning ordinance.

Instead, the supervisors ordered the planning commission to do a major overhaul of the law, and asked that residents and landowners tell the commission specifically what was wrong with it.

Tuesday night’s turnout was typical of the public interest shown in the revision. Only a handful of people have followed the process closely and offered input.

The commission spent the majority of its time Tuesday trying to decide how to handle special use permits granted under the old ordinance.

The commission made a few last-minute changes to the draft, deciding to classify horses as livestock instead of companion animals; allowing certain signs to be placed less than 30 feet from the center of a road if they fall outside the Virginia Department of Transportation right-of-way; and adding back a fee for cell phone towers, but dropping it to $55, the price of a special use permit fee.

At the hearing, Laura George, who sued the county some years ago over a zoning refusal and won, said the revision has two “glaring problems.” She did not like a section which said that if two parts of the zoning ordinance were more or less restrictive, the more restrictive regulations would apply. She said that is “quite inconsistent with what the board [of supervisors] wanted to do.” Additionally, she said, “This needs to be made retroactive for the prior 16 years.”

George asked that the commission add “some protective language” to industrial zone uses to regulate water-intensive industries like bottling plants. “We are sitting ducks,” she said. “Water is the next oil.”

Commission Member John Brewer, who also is chairman of the board of supervisors, asked about the provision for strict interpretation.

Zoning Administrator Elaine Holeton explained that the phraseology was common to zoning ordinances and necessary for enforcement.

Also during the hearing, Don Pridgen asked the commission to reconsider classing horses and equines as companion animals rather than agricultural animals, citing the Code of Virginia. Barns built for livestock are exempt from building and zoning requirements. He noted that he could not use ungraded, locally produced lumber for a horse barn under the draft zoning ordinance because the building would have to be engineered and inspected. “Let’s make the ag exemption policy simple and user-friendly.”

The commission agreed last week to classify horses as companion animals because that is how the building code classifies them.

Planning Commission Member Don Dudley proposed reversing that position Tuesday night.

Holeton explained that this would mean that someone building a horse barn would not need a zoning permit but still would need a building permit.

“Whatever we do, it’s not going to help as far as materials being used or anything else,” said Brewer.

The commission agreed unanimously to define equine animals as agricultural in the revised ordinance.

As for the special use permits, commission members feared that some landowners might be left operating under special use conditions that could be made less restrictive under the revised ordinance.

Holeton explained that special use permits are like a contract between the landowner and the county, and that any change to them should be reviewed with notice to adjoining landowners.

Commission members were particularly concerned that someone who had to get a special use permit under the old ordinance might qualify for a permitted use under the revision, but Holeton said she did not believe any changes to the ordinance would create that situation. “I don’t see any uses listed that we’ve ever given a special use permit to.” She said any revisions to special use permits should be handled case by case. “You may get one a year.”

Commission Chair Lindsey Carico disagreed. “There’s nothing that we made allowable that was special use?” she asked. “They shouldn’t be held to their contract five years ago, now that it’s an allowed use.”

“It will be an issue the day after this is signed,” said George, from the audience.

County Administrator Jonathan Sweet advised the commission that the county attorney would need to review such cases to protect the county from civil suits by adjoining landowners and that the Board of Supervisors would have to decide how to handle them.