ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, December 16, 1996 TAG: 9612160033
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MATT CHITTUM STAFF WRITER
Bud Brummit may be about to get some new rights as a resident of Botetourt County, and he's not happy about it.
If proposed amendments to Botetourt County's zoning ordinance are approved by the Board of Supervisors at its meeting Tuesday, Brummit will be able to open a "group home" in his Cloverdale neighborhood and house as many as eight "mentally ill, mentally retarded or developmentally disabled" people in it. He thinks he could even get away with a halfway house for recovering drug addicts, the way the proposed amendment is currently written.
And there's not a darn thing any of his neighbors could do about it. They wouldn't even have to be given notice.
"My neighbors would be seriously harmed by that," he said. "We could be talking about some serious property devaluation here."
Not that he wants to do it. Not that County Planning Commissioner Chuck Supan wants him to be able to do it.
And not that there's an indication that anyone is eager to put a group home in Botetourt. Supan said he can't remember the last request he had for a group home permit.
But Supan said the county has no choice but to fall in line with a change in state law put in place four years ago. Supan resents having to make the change because it takes power away from local government and the residents of Botetourt.
Currently, a special-use permit is necessary to have a group home in a residential area, houses are limited to three residents and a public hearing is required.
But as County Attorney Buck Heartwell interprets the state code, Botetourt must allow state-licensed group homes as a permitted use in all agricultural and residential districts. That means no rezoning is required, and therefore no public hearing at which neighbors could object.
Brummit and the rest of the board of the Cloverdale Civic League are especially concerned about one sentence in the proposed new definition of group home, which is taken almost verbatim from state law.
"For the purposes of this section," it says, "mental illness and developmental disability shall not include current illegal use of or addiction to a controlled substance."
As Brummit and others interpret it, the use of the word "current" seems to make room for former addicts in a halfway house.
Roanoke County alleviated that concern by adding a sentence to their definition of group home that excludes "drug or alcohol rehabilitation centers, halfway houses and similar uses."
The Cloverdale Civic League board sent a letter to all of Botetourt's supervisors, urging them to table the group home amendment until it could be learned whether Botetourt can add a similar provision to its group home definition.
Community activist Bob Bagnoli said he thinks Botetourt should follow Roanoke County's lead.
"I would rather err on the side of the Roanoke County ordinance and have somebody dispute it than have it go the other way and be sloppy loose about it," he said.
Supan likes the idea of clarifying the Botetourt ordinance and said he would ask Heartwell to look into it, but it's unlikely that will happen before Tuesday's supervisors' meeting.
Other proposed amendments met with more favorable response, especially new regulations on signs, lighting and landscaping.
If the amendments pass, lights on businesses and parking lots in the county will have to be less than 20 feet high, and the light cannot bleed onto adjoining properties.
Business signs more than 20 feet high won't be allowed, except within a quarter mile of Interstate 81, where they can reach 35 feet. Signs for industries will be limited to 30 feet. Smaller signs will have shrubs around them. Billboards, portable signs, signs with flashing lights and roof-top signs will be prohibited.
Business and industry storage and waste areas will have to be screened.
Brummit liked those changes.
"I think they're trying to go in the right direction," he said. He is, however, concerned with an amendment restricting building heights to 45 feet. The amendment allows the planning commissioner to grant an exception to the height restriction without consulting the Planning Commission. The Cloverdale Civic League board believes that gives one person too much power.
Bagnoli also praised the new regulations, but still has some concerns.
"How are they going to enforce these added regulations?" he asked. "What's the point of adding regulations if you can't enforce them?"
Botetourt's planning office is made up only of Supan and his administrative assistant.
"Chuck [Supan] does a fine job," Bagnoli said, "but he's only one man."
In general, he said, the zoning ordinances still don't go far enough. He's an advocate of more clearly defined architectural standards.
"We ought to decide what the county ought to look like architecturally," he said. "We don't know what we want. We're not really attacking the problem at its center. We're just touching on the edges of it."
A public hearing on the proposed zoning changes is set for 1:30 p.m. Tuesday in the Old District Courthouse in Fincastle.
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