By DAPHNE HUTCHINSON

By DAPHNE HUTCHINSON

Rappahannock News Staff Writer

Taking a strict constructionist stance at odds with both the Planning Commission and the county administrator, Rappahannock’s Board of Zoning Appeals last week denied a special use permit application for conversion of an existing structure into a one-unit apartment.

Charles K. “Pete” Estes, the supervisor from Piedmont District, proposes to remodel an old blacksmith shop into a small apartment for his mother. His one acre lot on the corner of Sperryville’s main intersection already has two dwell* ings.

However, the zoning ordinance allows up to 10 multifamily units per acre in Spetryville’s commercial village zone. But the ordinance also defines multi-family housing as a “residential building containing three or more separate dwelling units . . . generally (having) a common outside entrance ...”

In the absence of a provision for family apartments in the commercial village zone - an omission by oversight rather than intent, according to the Planning Commission - County Administrator John McCarthy, in his capacity as the county’s zoning administrator, construed Mr. Estes’s proposed use to be a variation of multi-family housing and thus allowable by special permit.

The Planning Commission accepted that interpretation as consistent with the intent for Sperryville’s commercial village zone, voting unanimously to recommend the BZA grant the special use permit. At the same time, the planners indicated they would propose an amendment to correct the omission in the next round of zoning ordinance changes.

“I’m calling it multi-family housing,” Mr. McCarthy told the BZA last Wednesday, repeating the explanation he’d presented to the Planning Commission.

“So there’s just something left out of this ordinance,” Chairman Lee Bird replied, noting that local officials had