Andrew and Nancy Dykers’ bid for an appeal that would have allowed a shooting clays course at their Orapax hunting preserve as an accessory use failed last Tuesday night.

The 2-2 vote amounted to a defeat for Orapax, which sits on about 672 acres off River Road West in central Goochland.

With member George Smith not in attendance, four of the five members cast votes on the appeal. Both Dr. Richard Carchman and Charles White voted in favor of the motion, which would have been to reverse the county’s previous decision. But fellow members Chris Williams and George Gill voted against.

The Dykerses have owned the property since 1980 and lived there since 1987, operating a large chunk of the land as as a quail preserve.

Andrew Dykers ran a shooting range with the hunting preserve from 1989 to 1991, but later was forced to shut it down amid complaints from neighbors. At the time, the Board of Supervisors passed an ordinance requiring a Conditional Use Permit (CUP) to continue operating the range. His application for such a permit was denied.

But because the county took gun ranges and sporting clays courses out of the county code in February 2006, the Dykerses thought they could get the course because it would be, in their opinion, an accessory use to their hunting preserve.

When the county passed the ordinances changes for agricultural land, the permit requirement was gone but there was also no direct definition of what constituted an accessory use, which was allowed without a permit.

But Goochland Zoning Administrator Bob Hammond disagreed that such a use was an accessory, beginning a process that now will almost surely be headed to Circuit Court.

The Dykerses’ attorney, Jim Cosby, argued that the shooting clays course would take up a small fraction of the preserve’s robust acreage and would allow for better training and practice for hunters. But those facts aside, he argued that the county was wrong because the use would be “subordinate or customarily incidental.”

Country Attorney Andrew McRoberts countered by saying that Hammond was correct in his determination because a property’s accessory use can’t be more intensive than the principal use. A course at Orapax, he argued, would present such an issue.

Hammond told the board during the hearing, which lasted nearly three and a half hours, that he deemed the sporting clays course as a “significant land use” and not a minor or secondary use of the property.

Andrew Dykers rose in support of his appeal during the public hearing, saying his position was “pure and simple” in asking members to favor his request.

“The purpose of our range is to make better and safer hunters for our hunting preserve,” he said. “Our range, the way we’ve designed it, will always be subordinate to our hunting preserve.”
Dykers later added, “It’s something we want to do for those hunters to make them better hunters and marksman.”

Though some neighbors rose in support, others rose in opposition, leaving the Board of Zoning Appeals with a tough decision.

With Carchman and White casting affirming votes and Gill’s vote against, the matter came down to Williams’ vote. As he visibly struggled with the decision, tension rose among the audience, which dwindled down to about a dozen from about 40 at the meeting’s outset.

Finally, he voted against, leaving the Dykerses and Cosby to mull their options.

“At this point, I need to have a discussion with my client,” Cosby said following the hearing when asked about future litigation.

When asked about the need for the sporting clays course from an economic standpoint, the Dykerses son, Tom, said that wasn’t a consideration.