THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, November 14, 1994 TAG: 9411140042
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MARC DAVIS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 70 lines
A small gas station with big signs has stirred a neighborhood furor loud enough to be heard in Richmond.
The Virginia Supreme Court, which turns down most appeals from lower courts, has agreed to referee a dispute in Ghent over four Exxon signs.
Neighbors say the signs at Colley and Westover avenues are big and ugly and improper in a historic district. Exxon says it's just business.
The dispute hinges on one narrow legal issue: Was the Norfolk Board of Zoning Appeals within its rights when it let Exxon keep the signs over the gas pumps in the Ghent Historic and Cultural Conservation District?
It isn't a question of who was there first. The gas station has been in the same place since Franklin Roosevelt was president in the 1930s. The neighbor who is appealing the case - lawyer/developer Wiley G. Gary - has lived behind the gas station for five years.
``When I moved in in 1989, I assumed they were in compliance with the zoning ordinance,'' Gary says. ``I found out they weren't. Why? Because they're Exxon.''
The issue, Gary says, are four signs put up in 1981, when the station was renovated - a pair of big ``EXXON'' signs over the pumps and two smaller signs on the main building.
The gas station sits on Colley Avenue amid old Victorian-style houses, brick apartment buildings and townhouses, two blocks from the downtown medical complex.
``If you've got an historic area, something ought to be done to make people comply with the minimum regulations,'' Gary says. ``Why should they be permitted to have all these signs without the proper variances? It's against the law. Other people are made to comply with the zoning ordinance.''
Exxon's attorney, James M. Pickrell Jr., declines to discuss the case, except to say that the signs are necessary for business. ``The operator would like to have them there,'' he says. ``It gives him a little visibility.''
A separate, stand-alone sign at the station is not disputed. Exxon got a variance for that sign in 1989.
The Board of Zoning Appeals gave Exxon a variance for the canopy and building signs in September 1993. Circuit Judge Alfred W. Whitehurst upheld that action in April.
But Gary argues that the board overstepped its authority. Under state law, a zoning board can grant variances only when strict application of the zoning law would be an ``undue hardship.''
In this case, Gary argues, there was never any discussion of hardship. Instead, Gary says, the zoning board granted the variance because, as one board member put it, ``it's a reasonable compromise.''
But that, Gary says, is not enough to grant a variance. The zoning board did not, as required by law, find that strict application of the law would unreasonably restrict the property's use.
``I think it's pretty cut and dried,'' Gary says.
It is unusual that the Supreme Court is hearing the case at all. The court accepts fewer than one in five appeals. Beyond that, few zoning board rulings are appealed to Circuit Court, and fewer still are appealed to the Supreme Court, mainly because of the cost. In this case, Gary is his own attorney, so he isn't paying attorney fees.
There is no hearing date yet before the high court. ILLUSTRATION: Staff photo by RICHARD L. DUNSTON/
The gas station at Colley and Westover avenues in Norfolk has been
at the corner since the 1930s.
KEYWORDS: VIRGINIA STATE SUPREME COURT LAWSUIT EXXON by CNB