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By SHARON KILPATRICK
Rappahannock News Staff Writer
By the time the Board of Supervisors had gone through the proposed zoning amendments Monday night, they were fairly close to the form they were in when the Planning Commission approved them in October.
The five-year waiting period from the time a piece of property is acquired until the owner can appply for a family subdivision was back in, and the two-year waiting period before a lot acquired under the provisions for a family subdivision could be sold to a third party was also reinstated.
When the board first considered the amendments in November the five year waiting period was shortened to two years, and the two year waiting period before the property could be sold was eliminated.
The amendments were proposed to try to reduce what the supervisors and planners see as “abuses” of the family subdivision provisions of the zoning ordinance.
These provisions were adopted originally to try to help families who have lived in Rappahannock for generations by allowing them to deed smaller lots than the ordinances usually permit to their children.
In recent years properties have been sold to people coming in to the county who have immediately divided the property among family members and within a year many of these parcels are owned by unrelated persons.
When the supervisors first considered the amendments in November they felt that a two-year waiting period before applying for a family subdivision would eliminate the worst of the abuses, and they felt that a provision prohibiting the sale of a lot acquired by family subdivision for two years would prevent the family member acquiring the lot from being able to get financing to build on the lot.
At Monday night’s meeting the supervisors voted to keep the two-year period before the lot could be sold but amended it to make an exception for obtaining financing.
The supervisors also voted again to approve an amendment that defined family members, for the purpose of family subdivisions, as children, parents or divorced spouses; and another that would prohibit joint owners, corporations and partnerships from using the family subdivision provisions for dividing a piece of property.
During the public hearing attorney Frank Reynolds, representing the Rappahannock League for Environmental Protection, suggested that the supervisors not adopt the amendments but instead refer the entire matter of family subdivisions back to the Planning Commission.
He maintained that the family subdivision provisions might be unconstitutional because they violated the Fourteenth Amendment guaranteeing equal protection under the law. He said the provisions allow an owner with children to develop his land more densely than the
See AMENDMENTS, p. 10
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