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a one-room church, and we need facilities for Sunday school classes and to accomodate the growth we’re, experiencing,” Lamm said. He said that all of the church members are residents of the county and many live in the Sperryville area. The building is planned to be 40’x 60’ in size.
BZA member Gregory Monahan asked Lamm about how the church building will be used. “We have Sunday morning worship and Sunday school, a youth group meets on Sunday nights and we have Bible study on Wednesday nights,” Lamm said. The church would also be used for vacation Bible school in the summer and for occasional revivals and dinners, Lamm said.
Ivan Hall, an adjacent property owner, spoke in opposition to the per-, mit application. Hall owns a 26 acre truck farm beside the lot that the church plans to build on. Hall told the Board about his plans for a home on his property, and that the work was to begin on April 1.
“We plan on building a home there as our final retirement home,” Hall said. He said that he saw where the septic field for the proposed church had been tested and assumed that the church building would be close to the field, which would place the church about 125 feet from the house he and his wife have planned for five years.
“We have invested about $60,000 into the property and will be investing another $100,000 more to build the home,” Hall said. “If you approve the application, you will inflict serious emotional and financial hardship on us, and we would have to cancel our building plans.”
Hall also asked about the basis used when the 26 acre lot was divided into two since 25 acre lots are required in an agricultural district unless a special use permit is issued. “I haven’t been able to find any record of the lot being divided,” Hall said.
Hall’s property has seven ponds on it, and he said that he is concerned about the possible pollution problems from the added traffic that the church would cause. “It is a natural watershed, and anything that happens on the lot beside me would affect my land,” Hall said. “It is regrettable that I’m here opposing the church’s plans, but if they’d build a reasonable distance from where our house would be I wouldn’t oppose it.”
When the possibility of requiring screening between the lots was brought up by Monahan, Hall said that his house will have cathedral windows for the mountain view.
Lamm asked the Board if it was valid for Hall to object because he would see the church from his house. “If he builds where he says he is, he could see our old church building,” Lamm said.
Board member Peter Kramer said that Hall’s valid concerns were based on the fact that he had purchased the property knowing that it was zoned agricultural. “There are 10 uses allowed by right in the area that he (Hall) made a decision that he could live with, and there are 22 other uses allowed with a special use permit,” Kramer said. “It will be a building of substantial size with traffic involved, and those are the factors we need to consider.”
Monahan made a motion to have the BZA conduct an on-site inspection,
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