“Residential zoning laws are in place for a reason,” a group of neighbors of a woman who bought a Waynesboro residential property in 2020 and has turned it into a B&B and events business wants the City Council to know.
“This request involves a business, not just a home in the neighborhood with a few ‘temporary’ events. The level of activity that is proposed definitely presents a safety concern and hardship,” the group wrote in a letter shared with me on Friday, ahead of a scheduled public hearing of Waynesboro City Council on Monday night.
I’m seeing the residents facing mean and ugly attacks from supporters of the Mimosa Farm business on social media, which would seem to run afoul of the image that the property’s owner, Jill Wallace, wants to have out there for her events-business-in-a-residential-neighborhood – Wallace has tried to highlight how her business benefits local nonprofits looking for quiet meeting space.
I mention the attacks from Wallace’s supporters here to explain why I’m leaving the names of the people behind the letter that I received on Friday out of this report.
Have your go with me, basically.
I’m a big boy.
Just so you know, bite me, I’ll bite back.
ICYMI
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- Waynesboro: Mayor tips city’s hand on where things are going on Mimosa Farm request
There’s a lot that stinks with how the city government has handled this request. I submitted an expansive public records request under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act to get access to communications between city staff and Wallace, and after several reads of the dozens of documents that were produced from the request, it’s obvious to me that the approach of the Community Development office in City Hall was to bend over backwards to make sure that Wallace had everything she needed to make sure the request would be approved by the City Council.
Inquiries were put out by staff to various city government agencies – police, fire, emergency services, building and zoning – to get input on the permit application, but oddly, there was no effort at all to reach out to neighbors as the research into the impacts of the business-in-a-residential-neighborhood was being done.
I asked the city planner, Alisande Tombarge, who did the leg work on the Community Development office review of the permit request, and signed off on the recommendation, to ask why there was no effort to reach out to Wallace’s neighbors during the review process.
The answer: “staff does not usually seek comment from the neighbors for land use applications.”
This answer caught the attention of the city manager, Mike Hamp, who noted in an email that we obtained from our FOIA request that he sent to Leslie Tate, the director of community development – and Tombarge’s boss – that “(i)t might be a fun exercise to address the question why staff does not seek or include comments from neighbors in a staff report.”
I’ve got an inquiry out to Hamp to get a sense of what he meant by that comment.
As it is, the staff report ultimately recommended approval of the permit request, and as I suggested in an earlier report on the issue – that a positive recommendation from staff would predispose City Council in its final dispensation of the matter – well, we have the affirmative comment to that point that the city’s mayor, Kenny Lee, offered at the July 21 Waynesboro Planning Commission meeting.
“As presented by the staff, in what they’ve presented, then I don’t see where I could say no,” Lee said, as he joined the 4-2 Planning Commission majority recommending approval of the request.
Thanks, Mr. Mayor. Because I’ve been saying since the outset of this that it was a done deal; nothing from what we’ve learned from our communications with the city staff, their communications with each other or what the mayor had to say at the Planning Commission meeting has proven me wrong on that.
Where this leaves Wallace’s neighbors, who, incidentally, purchased homes in a district zoned residential, not business – and deserve basic protections from having to live next door to an events business hosting 100 events per year, two events a week, every week of the year:
“Neighbors now have to fight just to protect the safety of their homes, families and streets,” they wrote in their letter, which concluded with the group, in essence, begging and pleading.
“In order to adequately protect and respect this neighborhood and community, and in keeping with trusted ordinances, please adjust any consideration of a permit to include additional limitations more in line with fairness and safety protections for Single-Family Residential and General Residential districts,” the group wrote.
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Chris Graham
