Issues surrounding the alleged zoning code violations of a local rabbit rescue group continue to be the focus of Augusta County officials both at a recent Board of Supervisors meeting and at an upcoming Board of Zoning Appeals meeting.
“I don’t recall any time in my 30 years of serving on the board of ever discussing bunnies,” said Augusta County Board of Supervisors chair Gerald Garber at the board’s regularly scheduled meeting last Wednesday (March 26).
At that meeting, the supervisors heard from eight speakers during the public comment period who spoke passionately about the public service that Bunny Lu provided not only to the local community but across the state. The speakers added that the nonprofit’s work helped fuel the local economy and saved government tax dollars by providing animal rescue services that would otherwise fall to the public sector.
The story began in November of last year when the Augusta County Community Development Department and the Staunton-Augusta Health Department received a complaint that Mary Ellen Whitehouse, who lives on Aero Drive just outside of Waynesboro, was composting rabbit manure along her property line as part of her nonprofit rabbit rescue organization, Bunny Lu Adoptions.
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The bunny rescue is operated from inside her home on property zoned single-family residential. Whitehouse founded the rabbit rescue in 1999 and has been operating from her current home since 2017.
County communications to Whitehouse stated that both the outside storage of rabbit manure compost and the operation of the rabbit rescue were in violation of the county code. The only solution, said the county, was for Whitehouse to close her rabbit rescue operation or move.
Bunny Lu finds homes for approximately 150 rabbits a year, and at any one time, there are approximately 30-50 rabbits inside her home. Bunnies, it turns out, are the nation’s third most popular pet after dogs and cats, but traditional animal shelters are often ill-equipped to deal with the unique needs and medical issues of rescued rabbits.
It turns out as well that a lot of folks have soft spots in their hearts for rabbits, and when news of the situation hit the public, a petition of support for Bunny Lu garnered 5,000 signatures.
The Board of Supervisors took center stage in the issue when the plight of Bunny Lu came to the attention of Wayne District Supervisor Scott Seaton, who toured Whitehouse’s home and subsequently brought the matter to the attention of the board of supervisors at their March 12 meeting.
After touring the facility, Seaton asked that the county be proactive in finding a solution to the problem because the rabbit rescue was “an asset to the county even in its present location,” and “brings good will.”
The supervisors then voted unanimously to ask the county’s attorney and planners to bring back potential solutions to the board. Although no solutions had emerged by last Wednesday, Garber assured the audience that staff was working on the complicated issue.
Garber, who represents the Middle River District, and Beverley Manor representative Butch Wells, both told stories of rabbits that their grandchildren had as pets. “We are trying to figure out a way to save this and make it work,” said Wells at the meeting.
However, even as a solution is being worked on, an appeal by Whitehouse of the county’s original citations will be heard at the Augusta County Board of Zoning Appeals this Thursday.
Whitehouse filed the appeal in early March before the issue came to the attention of the board of supervisors.
In Augusta County, a citizen’s recourse for disputing a zoning administrator’s decision is to file an appeal to the BZA, a county board of five members that meets on the first Thursday of each month in the Board of Supervisors room at the Augusta County Government Center in Verona at 1:30 p.m.
The BZA’s job is to make decisions pertaining to what can and cannot occur on particular pieces of property within the county.
At its meeting last week, the Board of Supervisors was adamant that there would be no disciplinary action against Whitehouse and her bunnies while solutions are being explored. “There will be no action taken against the situation as long as we are in a process of trying to find a solution,” said Garber.
Whitehouse says she is heartened by the chairman’s words, noting “I place my trust in the Board of Supervisors.”
Nonetheless, Whitehouse is still moving forward with the BZA appeal so that information about her local nonprofit that is “dedicated to rescuing, caring for, and rehoming rabbits” is placed in the public record.
On Thursday, in the seventh item on a very busy agenda, she will appeal the Zoning Administrator’s decision “that the operation of a rabbit rescue and adoption center with sales of rabbit supplies and merchandise in a Single Family Residential zoned area is prohibited on property owned by Mary Ellen Whitehouse, located at 11 Aero Drive, Waynesboro in the Wayne District.”
It is a public hearing, which means that members of the public are free to speak both for and against the appeal.
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