Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 3, 1991 TAG: 9104030608
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-5 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: YORKTOWN LENGTH: Medium
Since then, Morrises havefarmed and built more homes along Wolf Trap Road, but plans for more Morris homes are threatened by York County's land use plan.
Earnest Morris, Amonds' grandson, wants to subdivide his six acres so his two daughters and a granddaughter can leave their apartments in Newport News and build homes on the property.
The York County Board of Supervisors rejected Morris' request to build on the property, so Morris filed a lawsuit in Circuit Court seeking to overturn the decision.
The county's land-use plan prohibits more homes on land zoned industrial, which the Morris property has been since 1957, County Attorney William Hackworth said. The York Industrial Park, a small cluster of businesses, borders Morris' property to the south.
"I should be able to do what I want with my land," Morris said.
For more than 120 years the land has held memories for Morris' family and the entire community.
"He had just come out of slavery," Morris, 75, said of his grandfather. "Three years after the war closed, he bought the land."
Land "wasn't very much at that time," he said. "The people didn't have anyone to tend to their land so they almost gave it away. I remember when a horse cost more than an acre of land. A horse cost $100 and you could get an acre of land for $25 to $50."
All the surrounding land was farmland back then.
"I was born in this house, right here. I think in that room over there. We farmed all the way across that," Morris said, pointing across an empty field. "We'd have corn, potatoes, peas, peanuts, cabbage. We raised chickens. We had our own hogs."
The York Stars semipro baseball team had its diamond on Morris' property from the early 1970s to the mid-1980s and Morris said he is well-known in the community because of the ball games.
County officials acknowledge that the emotional arguments in favor of Morris are strong.
If the land is rezoned residential, "the result would be we would end up with several residences in the middle of a heavy industrial area," Hackworth said.
"He has the right to continue to live there," Hackworth said. "He has been living there despite the industrial zone for many, many years. The zoning ordinances do not have exceptions based on how long you've lived on the land. No community could have zoning ordinances based on exceptions like that."
In 1978, the county granted Morris permission to build a second house on the land because the two-story home where Morris was born had become uninhabitable. Morris and his attorney, Michael Wood, argue that the 1978 decision set a precedent allowing Morris to build homes on the site despite the industrial zoning.
Ninety-nine times out of 100, the land-use plan protects people, said county Supervisor Jere Mills.
"The land-use plan is there to protect people like Mr. Morris," Mills said. "Someone in a residential area does not want a tire plant coming in next to them."
Mills was the sole dissenter in the board's 4-1 vote to turn down Morris' request.
"I probably voted my heart, not my head," Mills said. "Everyone on the board felt sorry for the situation Mr. Morris was in. But it probably would have been illegal, the way our land-use plan is drawn" if the vote had gone in favor of Morris.
Mills and Sandra Lubbers, chairwoman of the board, declined to speculate on whether the case could be settled before it comes up in court.
But Mills said he wished Morris' attorney had waited a little longer to file the suit. "The court case has complicated things considerably. It might have been settled before then," he said.
It would be simple if Morris could sell his land and move.
But, Mills said, "there's not a whole lot of people standing in line to buy land" for industry in York County.
by CNB