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Application
creates stir
at Planning
Commission
BY GERALD OCHS
Rappahannock News Special Writer
The Rappahannock Planning Commission heard a chorus of opposing opinions at their March meeting. Proponents and opponents of the applications by the Maazels for issues of benefit to the Hearthstone school and its children voiced their views in a manner that demanded all of the skills of acting Chair Tbm Junk, who ably filled in for the recuperating Werner Krebser.
The special exception application, which had been tabled by the commission at their February meeting, requested the conversion of a temporary school facility to permanent use, and the increase of the maximum school enrollment to 115.
Maazel attorney Douglas Baumgardner represented the applicant’s case by focusing on three fundamental issues: 1) that the Maazels have no profit motive in their support for the Hearthstone school, but that they are altruistic and view their Castleton Farms as an ideal location for the school’s nurturing methodology that is optimized in and will assure the preservation of the rural setting; 2) that the approval of the use by the planning commission and the board of supervisors in 1997 and 1998 reflected an analysis that is still valid and that thus supports the approval of the present application; and 3) that nothing in the proposed modifications materially alters the existing approvals.
Mr. Baumgardner then discussed each element of the earlier analysis in the context of the proposed changes in an attempt to prove the continued approppiatenes%ef the use and its proposed modifications. Some key points raised s,by Mr. Baumgardner were refuted later in the public comments portion of the meeting. Questions for consideration by the commissioners in the application review process, such. as “Does the modification adversely affect the neighboring properties. . .pedestrian or vehicular traffic . . . water quality?” were answered in the "negative by Mr. Baumgardner but law served as the primary points of cqqtention by those in opposition.
Attorney Baumgardner tjras supported
in his presentation by jiuilder
See PLANNING, |age A7
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