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Washington s Town Council will consider its first request for rezoning under the town’s zoning ordinance revisions, adopted in August 1986, at a joint public hearing scheduled with the town’s Planning Commission at the council’s meeting next Wednesday, Feb. 10. It will be iheld at the courthouse at 8 p.m.
C. E. (Skippy) Giles Jr. has requested that the council clarify the status of the property now occupied by the Washington Cash Store, at the comer of Blue Ridge Avenue and Main Street. Mr. Giles would like to close the Cash Store and renovate the building for new offices for the county’s Health Department and three apartments upstairs. The request for a ruling came at the council’s January meeting.
When the council adopted sweeping revisions of the town’s zoning ordinances, it zoned the Cash Store lot as village residential, making the business a non-conl^ning use which was “grandfathered” under the ordinance’s provisions. Mr. Giles had requested a mixed-use zoning status, but the council declined, citing the residential natun^if the neighboring properties.
%lr. Giles sounded a note of urgency at January’s meeting, telling the council that the Health Department’s lease at the Clopton House expires at the end of June, and that he would need time to liquidate the store’s inventory and remodel the building. The Health Department announced some time ago that it was in need of larger offices for its operation. The Cash Store’s ground floor would provide 1,800 square feet, as opposed to the 1,170 square feet in its Clopton House quarters.
Eugene Full, the Health Department’s regional administrative manager, told the council that preliminary negotiations with Mr. Giles had begun, but the department could not finalize terms of a lease w ithout an estimate of remodeling costs.
Mr. Giles maintained that precedent exists for the use of the building as offices, since the Cash Store has maintained its office in the building since 1946. Prior to that time the building housed William Stuart’s General Merchandise Store and Stuart’s Bank, the last private bank in the United States.
What you want, or what the law is?
"There are ways to accomplish w hat Skippy is asking for,” Town Attorney Frank Reynolds told the council. "But do you want to hear what you want to hear, or do
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