Supervisors defer request in Crozier
BY BRAD FRANKLIN

May 13, 2008

The Board of Supervisors voted 3-2 to defer a rezoning case last week after the applicant and county staff couldn’t find a resolution on potential future expansion.

The request, brought by Old River, LLC, was to rezone from A-2 (Limited Agricultural) to R-O (Residential Office) the business in the 1500 block of River Road West in Crozier.

The applicant, according to attorney John Williamson, intended to rezone to support an insurance consulting business in the existing house, which is approximately 2,222 square feet on 3.51 acres adjacent to other business-zoned land in the Crozier Village.

But problems arose from what looked on the surface like a standard rezoning when the applicant balked at having limitations put on his rezoning request.

Zoning Administrator Bob Hammond, in presenting the application to the board last Tuesday, said staff had attempted to coordinate with the applicant some type of restriction on any future expansion.

Those fears were voiced specifically by those who attended the Planning Commission’s public hearing on the case.

In an effort to put some kind of long-term restriction on the expansion, Hammond said a condition was added to the application that spoke to future expansion.

“Some members of the public did express concerns that if it went beyond [the building’s current size] they would have some concerns,” Hammond told the board. “What we’ve asked for his consideration, what we have not received, is some limit.”

The request’s final condition read, “If, in the future, the owner/applicant desires to expand the structure, the expanded structure will not exceed the maximum floor area allowed by the zoning ordinance.”

But all that condition does is restate the requirements that the applicant would already have to abide by under the ordinance and the board seemed confused as to why an apparently useless and redundant condition was added.

Further, Williamson said his client had initially wanted a different zoning classification, so restricting him beyond what the R-O ordinance calls for would be too much. And that is why Old River had not agreed to the type of conditions that the planning department had sought.

If left unresolved, the underlying zoning would, by right, allow the applicant to more than double the size of his business, which in its location, Hammond said, would be a very different look.

“It would mean he could go up to 5,000 square feet,” Hammond told the board.

Asked by District 3 Supervisor Ned Creasey about whether the planning department notified adjacent landowners of the issue, Hammond said they did not notify anyone outside of the normal advertisement.

“Originally, it was a B-1 request. It was actually never formally submitted in that form,” Williamson said. “He downgraded it to B-2 in discussions with the county and eventually applied for R-O.”

The applicant, he added, was trying to make sure he could use the entire property and “not limit his future uses.”

Asked about the future, Williamson said, “[The applicant] just doesn’t want to foreclose his opportunities.”

Ultimately, District 5’s Jim Eads made a motion to defer the case. That motion found support from Chairman William Quarles (District 2) and Andrew Pryor (District 1).

Creasey and District 4’s Rudy Butler voted against the deferral. 

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