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ter. And if there’s no demand, he added, will the Chapmans have to convert the building to another use?
“If nobody shows up, it doesn’t make any difference ... We’ll be rattling around in a big house and eventually, we’ll sell it for a residence,” Renate Chapman replied.
Mr. Chapman added that he knows of six Episcopal churches in the Washington Diocese alone that are looking for a retreat center for small groups. He added that he and his wife plan to talk to representatives from those churches and others with the aim of getting a firmer commitment. “We want to have assurances of visitors before we start to build but we could survive without them.”
“We don’t have money coming out of our ears but we’re willing to commit what we do have to what we consider a ministry,” Mrs. Chapman added. “We’re not after income.. .We have to create a facility at our own risk, our own expense, before we can say “Wouldn’t you like to come here for a weekend?”’ If a survey shows no interest in a retreat center, she added, “we may build a residence just for ourselves on the property.”
Adjoining landowner Paul Taylor called the center “an experimental project” in that churches have found it’s not feasible to serve groups smaller than 40 on retreats. “If they fail with 20, will the board let them have 40, 60, maybe 100? Where do we go from here? How far do we let them expand their commercial concern? Do we allow a motel?” He also questioned the impact that water demands from the center would have on the area’s water table.
A.Y. Stokes, adjoining landowner and chairman of the county’s planning commission, noted that he has farmed the property the Chapmans have contracted to buy. Except for the house site, the slope is well in excess of 14 percent, he maintained, which would put it in a conservation rather than agricultural zone. “We’re dealing with conservation property. A commercial venture there is not in the best interests of the county,” he concluded.
“Is it conservation or is it agricultural?” asked Mr. Monahan.
Zoning administratoir Emiel Smet reported that the slope on most of the land is over 14 percent. “But it’s been used in an agricultural fashion,” he said, explaining why he had designated it as agricultural in the public notice of the permit application.
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