By DAPHNE HUTCHINSON

By DAPHNE HUTCHINSON

Rappahannock News Staff Wliter

“Compromise is the life of the law, and it’s important for people to get along,” concluded Chairman Lee Bird after Rappahannock’s Board of Zoning Appeals spent three hours last Wednesday directing the bargaining over conditions for a special use permit.

“Now I hope the two of you will work cooperatively together,” he told furniture maker Tom Von Fange and his neighbors, Herbert and Ann Sakalaucks.

Mr. Von Fange has operated his Mountain Cabinet Shop in Woodville for four years from a building on Route 522 that has been in commercial use, on and off, for 150 years. It was first a cabinet shop, then a general store, village post office and gas station. The store closed in 1947. For several decades, the building was the district polling site and more recently, it was used for farm supply storage by owner H. B. Wood. “I never realized I needed a permit,” said Mr. Von Fange, adding that he painted and cleaned the old brick structure in 1982 “and started woodworking.”

Mr. and Mrs. Sakalaucks, whose home is only some 30 feet from the furniture shop, recently raised the question of whether Mr. Von Fange had the necessary zoning approvals for his business. Their inquiries led to the zoning administrator’s directive for a special use permit. (Rappahannock’s current zoning ordinance allows cabinet shops in village residential business districts by special use permit.)

At Wednesday’s hearing, Mr. and Mrs. Sakalaucks stressed that they did not oppose issuance of the special use permit to Mr. Von Fange. “But for the public benefit, we’re asking for conditions,” explained their attorney, Frank Reynolds. Herbert Sakalaucks noted that Mr. Von Fange opened his shop several months after they moved in next door, but that initially, the business took up just one floor of the building. It is recent expansion that has created problems, he said.

Conditions sought by the Sakalaucks focused on: