DATE: Thursday, August 14, 1997             TAG: 9708140447

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B5   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY MATTHEW DOLAN, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE                        LENGTH:   36 lines

PLAN WOULD SHARE PUBLIC HEARINGS' COSTS CHESAPEAKE PANEL RECOMMENDS ZONING APPLICANTS PAY FOR OWN NEWSPAPER ADS.

As much as $20,000 drawn annually from city coffers to pay for advertisements of public hearings should be paid by private citizens, the city's Planning Commission recommended Wednesday.

Chesapeake would require zoning applicants who appear before city commissions to pay for their own newspaper advertisements under comprehensive ordinance changes recommended unanimously by the commission.

State law requires that cities place newspaper ads to announce public hearings. In several cases, such as special zoning exceptions, the law requires applicants to pay for the ads.

But currently, those applying for ``special exceptions'' to zoning rules in Chesapeake do not have to pay for the ads or city filing fees, which would cost $75 under the amended ordinance.

All application fees, under the new ordinance, could be refunded if an application is withdrawn before it has to be advertised.

The newspaper ads, planners said, will now be the responsibility of an applicant, costing between $50 to $100 apiece. Ads will have to be re-run if there are additional hearings, they said.

The ordinance change would also decriminalize several zoning violations, making them eligible for civil rather than criminal penalities. City officials said they hope that will make it easier to win those cases in court.

The City Council will have the final say on all the zoning changes at its Sept. 16 meeting.

In other businesses, the commissioners delayed consideration of a revised landscape ordinance, designed in part to provide incentives for tree preservation.

A hearing on that ordinance change has been rescheduled for Sept. 10.

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