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Did the Rappahannock Supervisors hit the off switch on the Planning Commission ’s 90-day time clock for deliberations on amendments to the county’s zoning ordinance’
We don’t think so.
Although Virginia Attorney General Marshall Coleman notes that a Board of Supervisors may stipulate a shorter limit than the 90 days allowed by the Virginia Code, it seems logical to expect something a little more formal in the way of notice than Supervisor chairman E. P. Luke’s letter to the Planners stating that the Supervisors would take “final action” on the ski ordinance amendments at their September 7 meeting.
In this same August 3 letter to the Planners, Luke requested a joint advertisement for public hearings on the proposed amendments with the Planners' meeting to be held no earlier than August 31 and the Board of Supervisors’ hearing “no later than September 5, 1978.”
If this letter was supposed to set up the time table for action on the zoning ordinance amendments, how can the Supervisors expect to defend the limit for deliberations that they supposedly set for the Planners when they couldn’t stick to their own self-imposed schedule? The Supervisors’ public hearing was held on September 7— two days past the “no later than” date of September 5.
There is no record in the minutes of the Supervisors’ meetings that they adopted or even discussed a resolution requiring the Planning Commission to reach a decision in seven days following the public hearing on the zoning ordinance amendments.
In fact, members of the Planning Commission have publicly stated they were under the impression that they had more time to study the ordinance amendments, that the amendments wouldn't be acted on at the Supervisors’ September 7 meeting. “We were told not to rush,” remarked one Planner recently, adding that the Commission had been concerned that the ordinance amendments were addressed too specifically to the ski area.
It’s a valid point. The record certainly makes it look like the amendments could qualify as “special interest legislation.” Col. Luke stated on several occasions that Judge Carlton Penn had requested clarification on the zoning ordinance's definition of “recreation” and he emphasized repeatedly that he wanted “a piece of paper” from the judge, with the request in writing, before proceeding further. Although Luke has pointed to the judge’s order for clarification as one of the reasons for adopting the ski area amendments, no such “piece of paper” can be found in the clerk’s office records of either the Supervisors minutes or the litigation involving the ski area, the Board of Zoning Appeal.* and the Supervisors.
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