The passage of the Scenic Byway Overlay District by the Surry County Planning Board on Monday turned out to be the easy part of the evening. All week long the pot has been simmering as a proposal to change the minimum lot sizes found in the county’s proposed ordinance changes makes its way toward approval.
Land attorney Howard Jones offers consultation to the county and explained that over half the proposed changes were required by the state to bring local codes into line with state statutes while others were needed to modernize the ordinances
After months of work and solicitation of input from residents, the county proposed to change the minimum lot size of lots in Rural Agricultural (RA) districts from 30,000 square feet (or .67 acres) to 2-acres. RA is designated, “to maintain a rural development pattern where single-family housing is intermingled with agriculture.”
Many residents at Monday’s meeting cried foul at the proposed change. Bryant Brantley of Farm Land & Country Homes said he has sold farms of all sizes in Surry County and has serious concerns about the proposal. In short, he said it would hurt property values, restrict the rights of landowners, and would discriminate against mobile homes.
He produced a video in which he showed illustrations of a piece of land of Chestnut Ridge Road in Surry County to illuminate the problem. The landowner owns parcels on either side of the road and wants to sell off an unused, oddly shaped, corner of their lot. Given how the survey comes out he said at best the lot would size out to 1.5-aces and therefore be too small.
On a map he showed how a long thin stretch of land along the property line could incorporate the extra half acre but only if the landowner moves their fence line restricting cattle. Another option is to lop off a part of the cattle pasture and add that to the smaller tract to create a 2-acre lot meaning the owner would lose roadway frontage in the process; both options are seen as a losing proposition for the current landowner.
“I don’t think the planning board folks thought this through, no doubt they are concerned about the welfare of the county. If people want to protect their rights to do what they want to with their property, they need to speak out. I think requiring people to sell off 2 acres of land as a minimum is a little too much,” he said.
Mount Airy realtor Treva Kirkman has been vocal since a rezoning proposal in Sheltontown to bring a Dollar General location brought that community together in a successful pushback. He is left scratching his head on the proposed lot size change though, “I find myself asking why? The reasons given to me are not acceptable.”
He said the answers about necessary space for septic systems does not align with what he has been told, “I talked to the county, and they told me they don’t have any problem if there is good dirt… They are the professionals; they won’t allow it unless it’s doable.”
“I think they should make it a flat one acre,” Kirkman offered in way of a compromise proposal, “that would be a 35 percent increase for RA, that’s quite a bit. Eighty percent of the county is zoned RA,” the majority of which is not being farmed he said.
“We need houses where people can afford them and we need homes period,” he said last Monday at the Planning Board meeting referencing 63 homes for sale in the area. “We have more brokers in Mount Airy than we have homes for sale.”
Teddy Edwards added his voice to the chorus of those asking questions about the proposed change and approached it in part as a landowner’s right issue, “It’s a bad idea. After the change, if I had a four-acre piece of land and wanted to break off one acre each to my kid I won’t be able to.”
Upon hearing Kirkman’s one acre suggestion, Edwards said he disagrees and wants the 30,000 square foot lot size to stay as it is. He said the decision will lie with the commissioners’ vote Monday evening and also advised he spoke to Commissioner Larry Johnson and was told, “The state has given the option to increase it or leave it the way it is.”
He agreed with Bryant’s point of view that part of the change seems to be targeted against more mobile homes. Those are often the best option for younger or first-time buyers, “My wife and I lived in a mobile home for the first four years as we saved enough money to buy a home. They are making it harder for people to buy a home.”
“This won’t affect me, but has the county thought about how many one acre lots are going to be useless if we go to this? There’s going to be a lot of lots that will be worthless,” Jeff Edmonds asked the planning board.
Jones said that only new divisions of existing tracts of RA land would be affected by this change, “This change does not mean if you currently have a lot of .69 acres, that had already been legally subdivided, that you are prohibited from building on it. That would be unconstitutional.”
“Some of these ordinances are dated and have not been addressed in many years,” board chair Tucker said proclaiming himself a proponent of landowner rights, “If it is your land you should be able to do as you please with it.”
“We are not precluding folks from building on 1.25 acres, which that is specific in a RA zone. There would be one additional step to come before the planning board and have that land rezoned RR (Restricted Residential) to erect a new structure on 1.25 acres of land.”
The board observed that a lot of the testimony from those in attendance had to do with misconceptions.
To demonstrate they offered a hypothetical of an existing 1.75-acre piece of land that is zoned RA, and the owner wants to sell to a sole buyer. The board confirmed there is nothing that says that a person cannot build there, the minimum only has to do with subdivision or, when RA land is subdivided into smaller parcels.
Existing lot sizes that are below this threshold are grandfathered in, Needham reminded, and the two-acre minimum is solely for RA districts. All other zoning areas will have a proposed minimum lot size of 1.25 acres, also up from the original 30,000 square feet.
If a person with RA land wants to divide it into parcels smaller than 2-acres, they would apply for RR zoning, Needham said, “Part of our 2040 Land Use Plan is to preserve the rural character of the community and this would be a means of doing that.”
He said the ordinances can be the friend, and even savior, of the citizen in a land use battle. There is no Dollar General at the intersection of Westfield Road and Quaker Road because, “The ordinances protected that community. It’s not that ordinances are to be an extra burden, but there are times that it’s a protection to keep a 20-acre farm, for example, from accommodating 40 houses.”
As emotions ran high on the matter, so did the rhetoric. Some county residents in opposition to the lot size change have suggested it is Commissioner Van Tucker leading the charge to change the zoning because he does not like mobile homes. Others charged the Vice Chair of the county commissioner of ramming changes through with the help of his son, Jon Tucker who is the chair of the Planning Board.
Commissioner Tucker answered directly, “Jon Tucker is my son. He was appointed to the Surry County Planning Board many years before I became a member of the Surry County Board of Commissioners. I have not been involved in Jon’s subsequent reappointments to the Planning Board.”
He also said, “I have made it a practice to not discuss Planning Board business with Jon and I have been advised by the County Attorney and by additional County counsel that there is no conflict under these circumstances.”
“The presence of a mobile home on any road has nothing to do with my support for or against any proposals currently being reviewed concerning the Surry County Development Ordinance,” Tucker clarified.
The matter is not yet settled as the Planning Board sent the package of proposals through to the county commissioners with a note suggesting changes. In their notes they suggested the commissioners consider a range of minimum RA lot sizes of 1.75 to 2-acres.
Edwards encourages all those with an opinion to be at the commissioners meeting Monday, April 17, at 6 p.m. at the Historic Courthouse in Dobson, “I was told if enough people show up and speak up against this (the board) won’t change it.”
Residents are encouraged to arrive early on Monday as seating is limited, and the commissioners are expecting a big turnout.
