Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, March 13, 1995 TAG: 9503130093
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: TODD JACKSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ROCKY MOUNT LENGTH: Medium
On Nov. 30, 1993, the Rocky Mount Planning and Zoning Commission met - according to the recollections of several people who were there - and recommended approval of some disputed townhouses.
The development was to be built at the intersection of Virginia 40 and Hatcher Street by Furnace Creek Apartments Limited of Tampa, Fla.
The meeting was taped so minutes could later be typed up and filed in the commission's log - a book accessible to the public.
But the tape never made it into the hands of the town's administrative assistant, and the minutes never were recorded.
Jack Betts, former chairman of the commission, has asked for the minutes and found out they don't exist. And that bothers him.
``You shouldn't be fooling around with town records,'' said Betts, whom council chose not to reappoint to the commission last year after 12 years of service. ``You ought to be accurate with things like that at all times.''
Betts was at the 1993 meeting. He said that, from what he can remember, the commission recommended approval of the project because it met the town's zoning and subdivision ordinances.
Of the 1993 commission meetings, the minutes from the Nov. 30 session are the only ones absent from the log book, a town employee said. The town has extensive records of commission meetings dating back to 1962.
Rocky Mount Town Manager Mark Henne said he operated the cassette recorder at the Nov. 30 meeting. He maintains that there was a tape that was in his possession, and that it has since been misplaced.
Asked if he found it unusual that the minutes of the commission's meeting on the Furnace Creek project are missing, Henne said: ``No, no, no. Sure, it's a controversial project, but we deal with a lot of controversial decisions.''
However, a Rocky Mount lawyer representing Furnace Creek believes differently.
Eric Ferguson said he only recently discovered that the Planning and Zoning Commission met in November 1993. Ferguson said he plans to file a lawsuit today challenging Rocky Mount Town Council's decision to reject the development.
Town Council voted early in 1994 to disregard the commission recommendation and to deny a subdivision plat for the project.
Ferguson, who has asked the town for the missing tape, believes its contents may make up the most important part of his case.
As part of another lawsuit filed last year over the Furnace Creek development, a Franklin County judge ordered that all records and tapes pertaining to the project be turned over to Ferguson by the town.
Nothing was included in that information about the Nov. 30 meeting, Ferguson said.
Henne said he looked for the tape after the judge's ruling but couldn't find it.
``I'm sure it's around here somewhere,'' he said Friday. ``But it's no secret what happened at that meeting. It's public knowledge.''
As part of the minutes of a council meeting held Dec. 13, 1993, it is recorded that the town's public works director ``stated that the Planning and Zoning Commission had recommended acceptance of the subdivision of lots'' for the Furnace Creek project. Those minutes do not specify how, when, where or why the recommendation was made.
In rejecting the development, town councilmen cited at least two problems, according to documents included in last year's lawsuit: flooding problems on the project site; and a belief that the project disguised rental apartments, which were not allowed in the zoning classification for the site, as townhouses.
But the developer, T.J. Fulkerson, said the council turned the project down ``only because it was low-income housing.''
Furnace Creek proposed - and still hopes - to build 39 two-story townhouses to be managed by the Farmers Home Administration. Fulkerson, a general partner with Furnace Creek, said his company has bent over backward to make the project fit the town's ordinance - to no avail.
In the lawsuit filed last year, Ferguson said he argued that action was never taken on a second town requirement tied to Furnace Creek's request - a preliminary site plan. A Franklin County judge ordered that action be taken on the site plan, and it was recently denied by Rocky Mount's zoning administrator, according to Ferguson.
A challenge to that decision will be made to the town's Board of Zoning Appeals, Ferguson said.
by CNB