The Mathews County Planning Commission, meeting Tuesday evening in the historic courthouse, voted unanimously to seek outside legal counsel before taking any action on a proposal to exempt the county from zoning and subdivision requirements for county-owned property, and to pause at least 60 days before making a decision on the request.

At its June meeting, Mathews supervisors (by a 3-2 vote) sent a resolution to planners seeking to exempt the county from its own zoning requirements.

At the heart of the matter is the future of the Hole in the Wall Waterfront Grill, the Gwynn’s Island restaurant property owned by the county and currently leased to tenants Mac Casale and Dean Tsamouras. At present, the county and the tenants have eight more years on a lease of the property, which was first signed in 2016, said supervisor Tom Bowen, who serves as liaison to the planning commission.

“It’s a really bad deal and we have no one to blame but ourselves,” planner Robb Riddle said of the lease. The county is required to pump and haul the business’s septic system, a costly enterprise in which Mathews has spent an estimated $250,000-$300,000 over the past five or six years, Bowen estimated. “How can we get out from under this expense?” is the question considered by county supervisors, he said.

A solution to the problem would involve the sale of the roughly 0.086-acre restaurant building footprint, with Mathews retaining much of the 0.92-acre parcel, keeping the public boat ramp and piers and adjacent parking lot as county property. However, for that to happen, the county would need to be exempt from its own zoning ordinances in order to subdivide this property.

Public hearings

A public hearing on the potential sale of a portion of 384 Old Ferry Road where Hole in the Wall restaurant is located has been scheduled by the county board of supervisors at its meeting next Thursday, July 17, beginning at 6 p.m. in the Harry M. Ward Auditorium at Mathews High School.

A second public hearing, on another county-owned property, will also be held at next week’s meeting. A hearing will be held on the extension of a lease for Tompkins Cottage to the Mathews County Historical Society. Society president Reed B. Lawson said her organization, which maintains the historic structure on Brickbat Road across from the court green, has a long-term commitment to preserve and to raise funds to elevate the cottage out of danger from floodwaters.

Lawson said the first lease issued in 1969 was for 25 years; since 1994, renewals have been in five-year increments. “In light of the society’s long-term commitment to the preservation of the Tompkins Cottage and the efforts we are willing to make toward achieving this goal, we respectfully request that the government of Mathews County extend our lease to 10-year (or greater) increments,” she said. The current lease at Tompkins Cottage expires in January.

Hole in the Wall

On the matter of Hole in the Wall, planners expressed concern about granting the county power over its own property that is not afforded the general public. “It felt back door to me,” planning commission chair Billy Cook said of the different rules for the county. Planner Byron Rauch said he doesn’t think the county government should have special privileges that regular citizens are denied. He pointed to a time he wanted to subdivide part of his own land, giving one acre to his mother and stepfather, but he said he was required by the county to give a minimum of two acres and was unable to do that.

Riddle said the planning commission doesn’t have an adequate amount of information and needs the assistance of an outside attorney, making the motion that was approved unanimously. “This is probably one of the worst leases I’ve ever seen,” he said of the Hole in the Wall agreement. “We owe it to the citizens to do our due diligence,” he said.

Planner Doug Wilson said he is also concerned about giving the county this power, saying it would step on the rights of citizens. He asked Bowen if the county could just address the single piece of property.

“Courts don’t allow that. That’s frowned on,” Bowen said, referring to the possibility of spot zoning. He suggested a longer term solution might be the creation of a commercial waterfront property zoning district, which could have in it smaller lot sizes. Planner Donald Morgan suggested the county sell the restaurant property and have the owner then remove the building from the location.

During public comment prior to the start of Tuesday’s meeting, supervisor Dave Jones (who voted against forwarding the request to the planning commission, along with supervisor Mike Walls) expressed his opposition to the proposal to exempt the county. “As Supervisor Jones, I will never vote for it,” he declared, asking planners to do their “due diligence” on this matter.

South Bay Haven

In other news, the planning commission voted to hold a public hearing in August on a proposal to convert a county-owned parcel on South Bay Haven Drive on Gwynn’s Island to a park, a move opposed by the neighbors. In May, supervisors voted unanimously to begin developing the land (which had come to the county through FEMA) for use as a park.

Planners voted by a 7-1 margin to hold the hearing, with commissioner James Meade voting against. Meade echoed the comments of a number of South Bay Haven Drive residents who spoke Tuesday night, addressing such things as the disturbance to the neighborhood, the traffic nightmare that would ensue and the need for the county to spend its resources on other county-owned water access points. “We’ve got our focus on the wrong place,” he said.

The hearing will be held when planners next meet at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 12, in the historic courthouse.