Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 25, 1992 TAG: 9203250297
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B4 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: MONICA DAVEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BEDFORD LENGTH: Medium
Soothsaying, however, is not his forte.
In 1989, a Bedford lawyer asked permission to build an auto body shop on a triangle of land in Goode.
Bob Wandrei's request made news - and history - by an accident of timing. It happened to be the first zoning application ever filed in Bedford. Before 1989, Bedford had no zoning.
Dooley, whose office handles such applications, took one look and said the project seemed pretty non-controversial.
"I don't anticipate a big deal," Dooley said at the time. "It'll be a good one to cut our teeth on."
Three years later, those teeth must be blunt from gnawing. Wandrei's request still is unresolved.
In 1990, county supervisors rejected Wandrei's auto-body shop because neighbors complained about the idea and because it received a low score - well below the 100 points Bedford's unusual ordinance requires to deem a project "in close compliance" with the county's long-term growth plan.
A few months later, Wandrei reapplied after the county code was changed in a way that was likely to boost his project's score slightly.
That application was dropped, though, after Bedford County's attorney determined that Wandrei, by law, had to wait a year to reapply.
Now, Wandrei is back, aided by a revised point system under which his garage squeezed past the cutoff with a grand total of 100.3 points.
The neighbors are divided about it this time around.
Some pro-body-shop folks have worked up a petition with 40 signatures of supporters. A crowd of antis have a petition with 20-some names.
"It's not necessarily a war down in that neighborhood, but they're just not good buddies about this," Dooley said Tuesday.
Reminded of his 3-year-old quote that the project wouldn't be any "big deal," Dooley, who has dealt with dozens of zoning requests since that first one, laughed.
"Talk about having to eat some words," he said. "I'll have to plead inexperience and naivete and say that I totally misjudged that one.
"We've learned the hard way," Dooley said. "Since then, we try not to predict."
by CNB