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By LOU HATTER
Rappahannock News Staff Writer
The Washington Town Council has deferred a decision on adopting the comprehensive plan and amendments to the pro nt zoning ordinances recommended by the town’s planning commis.- ,:>n. Following a stormy four and one-half hour meeting July 30 the Vashington Town Council decided to postpone any decision until its next meeting August 20.
After hearing objections from about three dozen residents council member Evelyn Willis said, “We’re sitting here tonight because of the town. I don’t think I have the right to vote tonight for these people — they want us to hear more.” Newly-seated council member Nan Thomasson agreed. “With all the input from residents, even with the changes I can’t (vote to) pass tonight.”
Council member William Wickens, also a member of the planning commission, disagreed. “If we wait 30 days and get a subdivision in we’re going to say, ‘I wish we had passed this’. To continue to let the town go unprotected — I do not feel comfortable.”
Mrs. Willis replied: “It’s all a gamble — but life is a gamble. If I’m wrong you’re going to strike me dead, (but) three weeks is not life or death.”
Mayor Dean Morehouse and council members Doroihy Clater, Mrs. Thomasson and Mrs. Willis voted to defer the matter.
The planning commission’s proposal to re-zone the tow n into four classifications from the present one drew the most fire fn-m the audience.
Under the ordinance now in effect (adopted in 1970) the entire town is zoned residential. The only “by-right” uses permitted by the ordinance are single and two family dwellings, churches, libraries and signs advertising businesses located within the town. All other land uses are sanctioned either by special permit (if begun after 1970) or as a non-conforming use (if they were in operation before the ordinance took effect).
The opposition to the re-zoning plan came from resi rits whose businesses will be located in proposed residential zones Business development in areas zoned residential would be severely n--i ricted under the plan.
Camille Harris said that “I’m real upset that the comprehensive plan doesn’t allow appropriate modest business development in enough areas.” She added that the “fine line” between vdlage service and village mixed use districts placed “too many restrictions” on mixed use districts.
Ms. Harris, who with her husband Pat Foster operat es a bed and breakfast in their home on Main Street, elaborated her concerns in a letter addressed to the council. “Washington . . . was conceived and developed over the past two hundred years under the principle of mixed use of properties. The interspersal of homes and businesses is what gives the town its character. . . . The proposed zoning ordinance does not recognize the full extent to which mixed use i currentlyexisting and it overregulates future development of mixed use properties which are being downzoned to residential and village services.”
Ms. Harris proposed that the village service district be reclassified to mixed use. She also suggested that the mixed use i Lssification be given to Main Street (both sides from the Washington ( ash Store to the Foster-Harris house); Gay Street (both sides from the Episcopal Church to the Gay Street Inn); and Middle Street (both sides from the intersection with Main Street to the Rt. 211 intersection). “The areas other than those I have designated . . . remain village residential or village rural agricultural,” she concluded.
Attorney Frank Reynolds, who also served as a member of the planning commission, defended the proposed zones, saying that to zone residential areas for commercial use would “artificially increase
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