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vote, with Councilman and Inn principal Reinhardt Lynch excusing himself from the Council table during discussions and voting.
Mr. Fletcher requested a Special Use permit to allow The Inn to develop 1,950 square feet of retail space and 1,850 square feet of office space at the recently acquired building at 411 Main Street, formerly known as Mrs. Coxe’s Tavern. The Zoning Ordinance permits, by right, 1,000 square feet of retail space.
The initial predominant issue was the availability of parking. One parking space is required for even' 250 square feet of building space, and so 16 spaces are required. Upon the question posed by Alice Butler, Mr. Fletcher said that they would use ten spaces at the former tavern, and six of the spaces behind the post office. Ms. Butler, Mayor Willis, and public commenters Barbara Stockton and Kay Kohler all contended that the post office spaces proposed were already in use, and that the parking plan was inadequate.
After closing the public hearing however. Mayor Willis addressed the issue of retail space size. He noted that the current limitation of 1,000 square feet has been in effect for fifteen years and that it “sets rules for how we live here together in town—it sets expectations.’’ He said that two applications “before the governing bodies”—Mary Ann Kuhn’s application for expanded uses at the Middleton Inn and The Inn’s Special Use application—"bring up a change now that will essentially affect every' residential area.”
He explained that he had asked William Wickens, former Town resident and an author of the Town’s Zoning Ordinance, Comprehensive Plan, and Historic District Ordinance, to explain the rationale behind the retail space limitation, and Mr. Wickens wrote that “ . . . these documents were designed to keep the look, scale and ambiance of Washington, Virginia, something which had been lost in other Virginia towns.”
The Mayor expressed concern that increasing the permissible retail space size for The Inn would result in a need for other retail shops to “increase and expand to keep up,” and that this would result in more and more traffic in Town. “It’s what I hoped would not happen
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