Council changes position on rezoning after second hearing

By DAN KEGLEY/Staff

A developer is questioning the change in voting by four Marion Town Council members between two public hearings on his request for rezoning of a .646-acre lot with a house at 1103 Culbert Drive from Residential R2 to Medical Arts.
The council on Monday voted 4-2 with one abstention to deny Ralph Price’s request for the rezoning that was twice affirmed by the town planning commission and recommended to the council for final approval.
In a public hearing Oct. 26 during a joint council/commission meeting (continued from Oct. 22 because of the unexpected death of council member Mark Warren), Suzanne Jennings, Jane Hale, Gene Hendrick, and Bill Weaver voted affirmatively for the rezoning, while Jim Gates and Mel Leaman opposed it, according to minutes of the meeting.
On Monday, Gates and Leaman opposed it again, joined this time by Weaver and Jennings. Hendrick and Hale again supported the rezoning. Citing a working relationship with Price, Buford Crigger, appointed by the council to fill Warren’s unexpired term, abstained.
No more than one public hearing or council vote should have been necessary on the rezoning. After the council granted the request in October, at the Nov. 2 meeting Town Manager John Clark said that although adjacent property owners had been notified of the public hearing, two required paid advertisements had not appeared as ordered in the News & Messenger prior to the hearing. The omission, discovered after the first hearing and whose cause remained unknown by newspaper officials late Tuesday afternoon, rendered the first public hearing void and forced the hearing’s rescheduling and re-advertising.
The second, replacement hearing was scheduled for Monday and the requisite advertisements announcing it appeared in the newspaper on schedule.
Minutes from the Oct. 26 council meeting that included the first but illegitimate public hearing said neither Price nor “the town staff have received any opposition to the rezoning.” At the meeting, its minutes said, “Bruce Milsap, owner of the property to the rear of 1103 Culbert Drive, stated that he does not object to Mr. Price’s proposal to rezone.  His only concerns are in reference to the large hemlock trees on Mr. Price’s property.  He would like to see these trees removed.”
Speakers at the rescheduled hearing Monday cited in their opposition to rezoning already- vacant and available doctors offices in the vicinity, possible traffic increases and concerns that physicians located around Smyth County Community Hospital will move with the hospital when it opens a new facility on Highway 11 near Exit 47, projected for 2012.
But on Monday, the town received a petition signed by 30 Culbert Drive residents opposing the rezoning request. Receipt was documented by a “Received” ink stamp dated Nov. 16 imprinted on the petition.
The petition said the undersigned opposed the rezoning because of a “possibility of a decrease in the value of our properties” and concerns over a possible increase in traffic.
On Tuesday, Price noted the location of the property he bought with the intention of marketing it to a physician as an office. “It’s right below the hospital parking lot,” Price said. “If it was any closer to the hospital it would be in the front door.”
Town Engineer Cecil Hicks called the location “transitional” between a purely residential area to the east on Culbert and the medical arts buildings clustered around the hospital.
Planning Commission member Alice Freeman, who cautioned against the rezoning at both hearings, said Monday, “It isn’t transitional. It is a neighborhood.”
Price said with the exception of one petitioner, the opponents are residents of Culbert Drive well to the east of the affected property.
On Oct. 26, meeting minutes said, Gates said several uses are allowed for medical arts and that he could not support rezoning without knowing who the prospective buyer is and a specific use for the property.
On Monday, Price said, “That’s not how development works.” He said property has to be developed for a type of use and then marketed.
At the October meeting, the council approved the request “with the stipulation that if not developed within 12 months, the zoning would revert to R2,” the minutes said.
During the meeting Monday, Jennings said she “wished she had known how many were against” the rezoning before voting the first time.
On Tuesday, Jennings said the vote Monday troubled her more than any other she could recall. “I can see both sides,” she said. “The reason I changed my vote was because I had some calls about more traffic. And what the lady said about empty doctor’s offices last night. I don’t know where they are but I imagine she is correct. I can see their side. But I feel for Ralph, too. I think if we had the petition and all the complaints the first time, it would have been different. In the beginning, there wasn’t anyone there in opposition.”
Jennings said she was also troubled by voting against a commission or committee recommendation.
“If someone has done their due diligence and research, I want to support that,” she said.
Weaver was in a meeting and unavailable for comment about his votes Tuesday afternoon.