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Planners recommend mobile home subdivision
BY CHARLES GARRATT • STAFF WRITER
 | | Attorney Peter Judah (l-r), engineer Russ Orrison and Village of Cedar Creek managing partner Paul Skilleter wait for more questions from the Bath County Planning Commission about the application to rezone and subdivide a section of the Cedar Creek mobile home park. Planners recommended approval by supervisors of both the rezoning and the subdivision plat. (Recorder photo by Charles Garratt) |
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WARM SPRINGS - The Bath County Planning Commission worked quickly through three public hearings Monday night, recommending approval of a conditional use permit for Burns Auto Repair and a rezoning and subdivision plat that could double the size of the Village at Cedar Creek.
After the public hearings, the planners discussed at length a proposed addition to the land use regulations, which will allow horses in residential zoning districts as a conditional use. A public hearing was set on the new regulation for Dec. 17.
Roy and Thomas Burns applied for a new conditional use permit for the auto repair business they run off Kenwood Drive near Bacova Junction. The current permit allows only 12 vehicles on the property. County planner and zoning administrator Sherry Ryder counted 42 vehicles parked on the property when she investigated an anonymous complaint.
 | | Newly appointed planner David Keyser represented the Cedar Creek district for the first time Monday. Keyser grew up in Bath County and moved back to the county two years ago. (Recorder photo by Charles Garratt) |
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No one provided written objections nor attended the hearing to speak against the application at the regular monthly meeting of the commission. Roy Burns told the commissioners the business needed to allow for up to 45 vehicles to allow for those waiting for parts and for customers who drop off a vehicle before service or wait a few days to pick one up after service is complete.
"We do our best to get vehicles in and out as quickly as possible," Burns said. He said there are currently 26 ve- hicles parked at the garage, four long-term. The rest, he said, will rotate in and out in three to five days.
Williamsville commissioner Lynn Ellen Black asked why the business needed to jump from 12 to 45 vehicles. "Forty-five is a lot of cars," Black said. She cast the dissenting vote in the 4-1 recommendation to approve.
The board of zoning appeals will hear the Burns application in January. The planning commission reviews conditional use permit applications and makes recommendations to the BZA.
Cedar Creek Associates had two applications before the commission. The first is a request to rezone 10.34 acres from A-2 (agricultural general) to R-4 (residential). The property is located off Route 687 and is part of the 38- acre property, part of which is the Village at Cedar Creek mobile home park.
Attorney Peter Judah represented Cedar Creek Associates Monday. He told the commission it would be difficult to find "any reason not to rezone" the portion of the tract in A-2. The remainder of the 38 acres is already zoned R- 4.
Black questioned Judah and Cedar Creek managing partner Paul Skilleter about the 10 acres and the nature of the surrounding properties. Skilleter said the 10 acres to be rezoned is forested, as was much of the surrounding land.
The commission voted 4-1 to recommend the rezoning to the board of supervisors. Black cast the one vote against the motion without making comment.
In a separate application, but linked to the first, Cedar Creek presented a subdivision plat for preliminary review and final review. The subdivision calls for creating 64 lots on 27 acres of the property including the 10 acres to be rezoned. The rezoning is required to allow the lot size requested in the plat.
Skilleter said the new subdivision will be part of the existing mobile home park and will provide "work force housing." The trailers in the current park are on rented lots he said, which prevents the owners from obtaining conventional financing.
In the proposed subdivisions, the individual lots would be sold in with fee simple deeds allowing both the manufactured home and lot to be financed through conventional mortgages Skilleter said.
Cedar Creek planner David Keyser attended his first meeting Monday after being appointed and sworn in last month. Keyser looked at the plat and asked Skilleter if the lots were of sufficient size to allow proper setbacks for a 60 or 70- foot singlewide.
Skilleter said Cedar Creek was "not asking for any variations from codes." The plan, he said, was to place shorter, more rectangular homes on the lots. Cedar Creek will supply the home on the lot and sell the two as a unit. Most of the homes would be 28 to 32 feet wide and 44-54 feet long and be doublewide homes.
Black expressed concern about police coverage in the park and asked if there had been a lot of complaints in the existing village. Judah said "any densely populated area will have problems from time to time," but did not think the problems were now or would be out of the ordinary.
The existing park has been in use since 1960 and during the height of construction on the Bath County Pumped Storage facility had 100 trailers Skilleter said. A new 15,000-gallon per day sewage treatment plant was recently completed at the park.
Skilleter said the old lagoons are being closed with DEQ over sight and according to regulations. The lagoon site will be covered with soil and converted to a recreational area he said.
The new plant has capacity for 70 connections Skilleter said, with 47 in use. Twenty-three more units are planned within the existing park he said and 63 additional units in the new subdivision.
Judah said the developer, Cedar Creek Associates, would be responsible for the cost to double the capacity of the new treatment plant. He said the original plans for the facility included the option to double the capacity of the facility.
Black noticed a letter in the application packet from Bath County Service Authority administrator Bugs Phillips regarding water and sewer services for the proposed subdivision.
She asked, "Have you gotten water worked out?"
Russ Orrison of Perkins and Orrison developed the plats for the new subdivision and was present Monday to answer technical questions. He said the developer is aware they will have to pay 100 percent of the cost to expand the sewage plant and also the water supply if necessary.
Judah asked the commission to recommend approval of the application contingent on Cedar Creek working out agreements for water and sewer. The commission voted 4-1, with Black again dissenting, to recommend approval of the subdivision to the supervisors.
Horse ordinance
moves forward
Last month, commission chairman Mike Grist asked Ryder to provide a sample ordinance allowing horses in residential districts as a conditional use. Ryder presented five pages marked "rough draft" for the commission to review.
Board members thanked Ryder for her work, which included sketches of lots with fencing located at various setbacks and calculations of the area available for horses given various options. But then they picked the proposed ordinance apart trying to develop something that would be balanced.
Ryder pointed out the new regulation must protect the residential character of the zoning district and the people who live in the district. "You have to have something that isn't going to be shot down," Ryder said.
Grist said he would like to have a public hearing at the next meeting on a proposed draft regulation.
The commission scheduled the hearing for Dec. 17, the third Monday in December. The commission normally meets on the fourth Monday, which is Christmas Eve this year. Since the BZA is not meeting in December, the third Monday was open.
The hearing will not be to debate "whether we have them or not," Grist said.
Supervisors asked the commission for an ordinance allowing horses in residential districts as a conditional use with strict conditions, he said. The commission is charged with setting those conditions after public input.
Discussion ranged from fence setbacks to whether people should be allowed to store hay in old school buses.
Black said she had not run into one person opposed to horses in residential areas if there is enough land.
Grist was emphatic the new ordinance should clearly allow horses for "personal or pleasure, not commercial operations." After some questions for other commissioners, he said he didn't mind someone keeping a horse for a friend or family member, but he didn't want anyone building a "ratty barn and stalls" and stabling horses and charging.
The commission settled on some changes to the draft including allowing up to five horses on a residential lot of at least 10 acres. The previous ordinance, repealed in 2004 by the supervisors, allowed livestock on residential lots as small as five acres with a conditional use permit.
A draft of the new ordinance will be prepared by Ryder and will be available to the public before the hearing next month. The commission will make changes to the ordinance as necessary after public input and then pass it along to the supervisors for another public comment before they vote whether to include it in the land use regulations.
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