The Gloucester Planning Commission voted unanimously last Thursday to recommend approval of a proposed rezoning application for a Route 17 parcel adjacent Hogg Funeral Home in Hayes. The land is currently zoned Single Family (SF-1) and the applicants, David and Joyce Bristow, are seeking a rezoning to Business (B-1).
Though previously reported as 1.62 acres, the plot is actually 1.52 acres with the only ingress and egress located on Route 17 South. It is currently wooded and separates Hogg Funeral Home from several residential properties on Powhatan Drive.
The applicants have no proposed use listed for the property; however, through their legal representation explained that this is more a move “preparing for the future” than initiating immediate development.
Planning staff is of the opinion that the proposed rezoning is in compliance with the comprehensive plan and the parcel falls within a transitional area and would be consistent with the Gloucester Point/Hayes Village Development Area Plan. Without a proposed use for the potentially rezoned land, traffic and fiscal impacts are not possible to estimate at this time.
With this in mind, staff recommended “that the planning commission listen to comments from the owner and public, discuss and evaluate the private benefit of the zoning change against potential detriments, if any.” Staff neither recommended denial nor acceptance.
Attorney Mike Soberick, representing the Bristows, then came to the podium to speak for his clients. “The reason you should rezone this is because residential is flatly unreasonable,” he said. “You can’t put a house in there, there’s no access to get out.” Soberick said the property should have been zoned business in 1983 when the ordinance was created, adding “any property owner has a right to reasonable use of their property and right now single family just isn’t a reasonable use.”
Following these remarks, Mike Marsh, a homeowner on lot 16 which borders the proposed rezoning, spoke on his and his wife’s concerns. “The only notice of the rezoning that I got was the notice for this hearing tonight,” he said. “I have no issue with the rezoning, but my concern is with the property value impact in the change from residential to commercial.
“The buffer that it provides for noise to our neighborhood with the wooded area currently there … will there be a buffer,” he asked. Marsh said it makes “perfect sense” to rezone the land, but wanted to ensure a buffer to prevent negative effects on property values for adjacent homeowners in the case of increased noise from Route 17.
Anne Ducey-Ortiz, Director of Planning and Zoning, assured Marsh that, should the business take action on the site, “a stockade fence with an evergreen hedge … or a 30-foot buffer with no fence and staggered evergreen trees and shrubs” would be required.
Hearing this, Marsh said, “if there is that buffer zone, that would satisfy my concerns other than if there are effects to property value on the residential side” before taking his seat.
Commission member Ken Richardson asked, “What can really be done back there because of the lack and ingress and egress?” He was of the opinion that the applicants “can’t really do a lot of anything without a whole lot of other major changes that I don’t know they could get accomplished,” and for that reason felt more comfortable with the rezoning.
James Gray, acting chair of the commission, then said, “I agree with Mr. Richardson on this.” Gray felt that “this was a mistake made in the zoning process” decades ago and that “I’ll go as far to say this probably should have been a county-sponsored rezoning, as this was pretty clearly a mistake.”
The chairman then opened the floor to a motion. Following a motion to forward to the Board of Supervisors with a recommendation of approval, the commission voted unanimously in the affirmative.