Tammy Purcell/Engage Louisa
A storage facility designed to accommodate lake goers is coming to Wares Crossroads.
Supervisors voted unanimously May 20 to approve Lake Anna Storage, LLC’s request to rezone, from Agricultural (A-2 GAOD) to General Commercial (C-2 GAOD), 7.714 acres (tmp 28-106) just southwest of the intersection of Chopping Road (Route 623) and Zachary Taylor Highway (Route 522) in the Lake Anna Growth Area Overlay District.
The rezoning clears the way for Doug and Kristin Barmoy to open a storage facility on the property, which will provide space for lake users to store boats, other watercraft and recreational vehicles.
Throughout the public approval process, the Barmoys have said their propoal would meet a need in the community, pointing to the long waitlists at other storage facilities in the area. They’ve also emphasized that the rezoning fits with the character of the neighborhood, noting the parcel, which is currently home to a single-family residence, is surrounded by properties zoned for commercial use.
While the board voted unanimously to approve the rezoning, a proposed proffer attached to the request caused some concern and was ultimately removed.
As part of their proffers, the Barmoys agreed to exclude all but 21 uses permitted in C-2 zoning from being developed on the property in the future. But, at the urging of the planning commission, they also agreed to present to the commission for review and comment any plans to utilize the property for a permitted use other than what they currently propose.
The proffer requiring additional review sparked the ire of Mineral District Supervisor Duane Adams, who represents Wares Crossroads and the upper end of Lake Anna. Adams argued it amounted to unnecessary government regulation, noting that permitted uses of concern to county officials can be excluded via proffers as the Barmoys had done with a number of uses.
“This is an additional layer of government control over property rights. The whole purpose of the planning commission process is [that] if you want something proffered out, you proffer it out. You don’t come begging back to the government years later and ask for permission to submit a project,” Adams said.
But other board members contended that the Barmoys were seeking a rezoning specifically for a boat storage business and related uses, and the planning commission was concerned that radically changing the use in the future could have unforeseen ramifications for the neighborhood.
Jackson District Supervisor Toni Williams recalled that, several years ago, the board rezoned a nearby parcel for use as a boat storage facility and the business never materialized. The parcel is now for sale with a full range of commercial uses available to its owner.
“What I don’t want to do is see people buying up stuff, getting it rezoned in the Growth Area Overlay District with the promise of doing something, and then ‘oh-by-the-way, it just didn’t work out, let me stick a for sale sign on it,’” Williams said.
Cuckoo District Supervisor Chris McCotter sounded a similar note. He said that he’d talked with his commissioner about the proffer and didn’t see it as undue regulation but wise planning.
“The way it was explained to me, [the planning commission] approved it with these bullet points because there was a trend to bring something [in with] a site plan and then afterward it tended to be something different. They did not want to cede control of that process,” McCotter said.
For their part, the Barmoys reminded the board that the surrounding properties are zoned general commercial and have access to the full range of uses permitted in the zoning code. As part of their proffer statement, many potential uses are excluded and those that remain, as Kristin Barmoy put it, “make sense.”
As an example, she said that she and her husband had excluded a shooting range as a future use, but want to retain the option of putting a medical office on the property because that’s something desired by lake residents.
“We are planning on putting a boat storage facility there. But…if somebody approaches us and says ‘we want to build an urgent care on this [site]’ before we have the boat storage constructed, we want to have options,” Kristin Barmoy said. “Every other property surrounding us has those options plus some that we eliminated.”
After hearing from interim County Attorney Dale Mullen, who noted the PC’s effort could be redundant, the board agreed to approve the rezoning without the proffer at the Barmoys’ request.
But McCotter said that, in the future, the board should be careful about altering proffers at the last minute especially when they come before the board with the planning commission’s endorsement.
The concept plan the Barmoys submitted as part of their rezoning request also sparked conversation and a tweak to the proffers.
According to the plan, the Barmoys intend to construct four covered storage structures, outdoor parking spaces and a 2,000-square foot workshop for detailing, and they plan to use an existing home on the property as an office. The business would be mostly surrounded by a 10 to 40-foot tree-lined buffer and accessed by a shared commercial entrance off Chopping Road.
Patrick Henry District Supervisor Fitzgerald Barnes said that he wanted to ensure the facility is properly buffered, noting lessons the county learned from developing Zion Crossroads.
“There is a reason that the north side of Zion Crossroads looks better than the south side. The south side got planned before we started looking to the future…now you see the setbacks, the shrubbery. It’s day and night,” Barnes said.
Doug Barmoy said that, per the concept plan, Lake Anna Storage will maintain a roughly 40-foot vegetative buffer along Chopping Road to help screen the property and include a 10-foot buffer along other parts of the site. At the request of the planning commission, the Barmoys also agreed to provide Louisa County a 10-foot right-of-way along Chopping Road for future road improvements.
Louisa District resident Vicky Harte, the only other community member to weigh in during the public hearing, said she noticed cemetery markings on the concept plan. Harte said she wanted more information about the cemetery and asked how it would be preserved.
Doug Barmoy said that there are about a dozen dilapidated gravesites on the property, but he doesn’t know who’s buried there. He added that, in developing the site, Lake Anna Storage plans to build a fence around the cemetery and “keep it nice.”
At Adams’ request, the Barmoys agreed to a proffer requiring a 10-foot buffer around the cemetery.
The Barmoys said the business would fill a need in the community, noting the long waitlist at other storage facilities.
In their land use application, the Barmoys say the rezoning fits with the character of the neighborhood because the parcel is surrounded by other commercially-zoned properties and adjoins Lake Anna Tractor and Hardware.
According to a preliminary site plan, the Barmoys plan to construct four covered storage structures, outdoor parking spaces and a 2,000-square foot workshop. They intend to use an existing home on the property as an office. The business would be mostly surrounded by a 10 to 40-foot tree-lined buffer and accessed by a shared commercial entrance off Chopping Road.
While the planning commission voted 6-0 to recommend that the board of supervisors approve the rezoning, Cuckoo District Commissioner George Goodwin expressed concern that the applicant’s proffer statement permitted the property to be used for a plethora of businesses that could impact the neighborhood far differently than a storage facility.
Goodwin urged the Barmoys to revise their proffers to exclude additional uses.
The Barmoys agreed to exclude all but 20 future uses permitted in C-2 zoning and to present to the Planning Commission for review and comment any site plan for a use other than what they currently propose.
