Let’s say you’ve lived at the end of a quiet street on the edge of Waynesboro for years, and then somebody buys a property in your neighborhood, fixes it up, starts to rent it out for weddings and public events – in obvious violation of the zoning law.
People going to those events park in your front yard, and give you the finger when you tell them to move their cars.
This goes on for years, you’re frustrated, but what do you do, right?
And then, when the city finds out, they side with, guess who?
This is what is happening for residents of the Alphin Avenue/Rhoades Drive area.
An item on the agenda for the Waynesboro Planning Commission for its July 21 meeting involves a recommendation from the Community Development Department that would have the city approve a conditional use permit for a property owner who has been violating the city zoning ordinance for years to rent out her property for weddings and public events.
And get this: if she were to violate the terms of proposed permit, it would be up to her neighbors to issue complaints to the people in the department who are recommending that the city give her this permit to have the terms enforced.
Does anybody else see the flaw – flaws! – in this process?
Thin review process
I’ve talked with more of the neighbors to the 601 Alphin Ave. property that Jill Wallace calls Mimosa Farm regarding the issues at play here than anybody in the city government has – there’s your first flaw.
From my email back-and-forth with the city planner, Alisande Tombarge, who did the leg work on the Community Development Department review of the permit request, and signed off on the recommendation, “staff does not usually seek comment from the neighbors for land use applications.”
Advice: that needs to change.
Stat.
Waynesboro Planning Commission meeting
- Date/time: Tuesday, July 21, 7 p.m.
- Location: City Council chambers, 503 W. Main St.
“We encourage the applicants to talk to their neighbors about their applications and see what concerns they may have,” Tombarge told me. “As required by code, an ad is published in the local paper, notices are sent to the neighbors bordering the property, and signs are posted at the property regarding the application.”
OK, so, there’s what’s required, and what makes sense, is my observation here.
In this case, in particular, Ms. Wallace has been in violation of the zoning ordinance for some time now.
I’m not the only saying that: Tombarge spells it out, in detail, in her staff report.
The applicant purchased the property in 2020 and completed extensive renovations to the home. The applicant currently rents out a portion of the home, her primary residence, as a short-term rental. In addition to the short-term rental, the applicant has used the property as a location for events, including a fall festival that serves as a fund raiser for local dog rescues, small and micro weddings, elopements, graduation parties, and recurring events such as the weekly Heavy Hearts, Light Snacks meetings organized by The Donation Station. The applicant was unaware these events violated the zoning ordinance and is seeking the CUP to bring her activities into conformance with the city’s zoning ordinance and to continue using her property for these events.
Noting this, that Ms. Wallace has been in violation of the zoning ordinance with her events, it doesn’t somehow make sense for the Community Development folks to proactively reach out to Wallace’s neighbors while reviewing this request, to get their input?
The answer, no, is unacceptable, but it’s what we have – Tombarge, with no input from Wallace’s neighbors, prepared a nine-page staff report on the permit request that makes clear that she talked with the property owner, and communicated with city fire and emergency services officials and the city building and zoning administrator, who she cites in the report as having reviewed the application and indicating “that it was possible the property would be exempt from oversight because the activities held there might be considered agritourism and as such not regulated by the building code.”
No recourse?
The building and zoning administrator, I will note here, is one of the people in the chain who would deal with any future complaints.
I’m sure you’d get a fair hearing from a guy who doesn’t even think the city has oversight with regard to this property.
After talking with the various officials – and again, no one from among Wallace’s neighbors, who, outside of Wallace, would be those most directly impacted – Tombarge recommended that the city approve the permit request with several conditions that she wrote “will help mitigate the negative impacts on the surrounding properties of events on this property while allowing flexibility for the desired events to take place.”
Interesting that these conditions – most notably concerning parking and operating hours, the two key issues noted to me by neighbors – weren’t first run by any of the neighbors, to give them the opportunity to offer their thoughts.
Regarding parking, to mitigate possible issues with overflow from events that, per conditions of the permit request, would not be permitted in public right-of-way.
Instead:
Event parking will primarily be in the grassy field to the east of the main house. Staff estimates that this field could accommodate approximately 50 vehicles. If additional parking is needed, say for the spring or fall festivals, overflow parking would be provided in the field with the two barns. Parking attendants would be present for the two festivals to monitor and direct attendees to appropriate parking locations. For smaller events, attendees will self-park in the smaller field, and valet parking will be offered for all weddings with the vehicles parked behind the house.
Which sounds all well and good, but.
Who enforces this?
If people decide they don’t want to park in a field for a weekend wedding and park in the street instead, what, you take photos and email them to the city and wait for somebody to get back to you next week sometime?
And who enforces the limited capacity of “100 invited guests, not including staff or support workers brought in to assist with the event”?
Who enforces the permit conditions stating that “events shall abide by the noise ordinance in Chapter 50, Article IV of the City Code,” and that “no events shall start prior to 9:00 A.M., and events shall end by 11:00 P.M.”?
“If someone has a complaint, they should contact the city’s Building and Zoning divisions under the Community Development Department. They can call (540-942-6628) or stop by the office during normal business hours or send an email. There is also a form that can be filled out by the person with a complaint, attached, but this is not required,” is what Tombarge told me on that.
So, call, stop by after the fact for a chat or email the department that didn’t consider the concerns of neighbors before full-throatedly recommending that Waynesboro City Council approve the permit request in the first place, and expect the folks in that office to give them a fair hearing?
OK.
Why do I think here that neighbors who have had to deal with events at the location clogging their narrow street, letting out late at night, and now, per another condition of the recommended permit, will have to endure a “number of events (that) shall be limited to 100 per year,” will have any future complaints fall on deaf ears?
One hundred public events per year, 9 a.m. to 11 p.m., to the edge of the noise ordinance, in a residential area; sign me up for that, right?
Once this permit gets approved, the neighbors are clearly on their own.
Because the Community Development Department didn’t give Wallace’s neighbors a chance to weigh in on the initial review, their sole recourse is to pack next week’s Planning Commission meeting, and then the City Council public hearing that will be held next month.
They’ll be fighting an obvious uphill battle, because even if they’re able to persuade the Planning Commission to vote against recommending approval of the request, they’ll still head into the City Council phase of the review having this staff report stacked against them.
Moving forward: We need to do better
I don’t have a dog in this particular fight – I would hope that there could be a way that Ms. Wallace could continue to host events, though, not sure about 100 per year, with 100 invited guests, at her property, and that her neighbors could be assured that the people who visit Mimosa Farm for events show proper respect their quiet street on the edge of the city.
The bigger issue to me is, moving forward, we’ve got to do a better job with how we consider these kinds of requests in the future.
Zoning laws are in place for a reason, and it shouldn’t be up to neighbors to enforce them – and in cases like this one, involving somebody who’s been violating the zoning laws for years and is trying to get into compliance, the people in charge of the review need to go out of their way to make sure that all voices are heard before somebody signs off on recommending approval for a suggested fix.
We’re in a day and age when people almost automatically distrust government, because it seems that laws only exist to protect the interests of people with influence.
Fair or not, the way this process has played out to this stage would seem to reinforce that notion.
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Chris Graham
