Residents Still Seeking Zoning Determination on Mary's Landing Property
Attorney for group of city residents sent a revised request this week after the city said the original request would incur a nearly $5,000 fee.
By Adele Uphaus
MANAGING EDITOR AND CORRESPONDENT
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A group of Fredericksburg residents are continuing to seek a determination from the City regarding the allowed uses of the property where a developer wants to build a 63-townhome community known as Mary’s Landing.
Attorney Giff Hampshire, representing three city residents who are members of the Fredericksburg Neighborhoods Coalition, sent a request for a zoning determination to the city’s zoning administrator, Kelly Machen, this week.
It is the second request for a zoning determination Hampshire has made on behalf of his clients, after the first request generated an invoice from the city in the amount of $4,944, or $75 per individual parcel number plus a $144 credit card fee. Mary’s Landing project encompasses 64 individual parcels.
Hampshire’s revised request specifies that is only seeking zoning determination for six of the 64 parcels. It also objects to the city’s fee assessment.
“This fee does not appear in your Fee Schedule and was apparently made up to fit this request,” Hampshire wrote in a November 19 letter to Machen. “My 8 November 2024 email objected to this $4,944.00 invoice as an outrageous fee, stating that ‘[a] zoning verification fee that is designed for verification of each parcel is not suited or reasonable for a zoning determination request going to the joint use of all GPIN’s together.’”
In response to questions from the Advance, City spokeswoman Sonja Cantu sent a copy of the amended fee schedule for planning and zoning applications, which was approved by Council in May of 2022.
“In the fee schedule, Zoning Determinations fall under the ‘Zoning Letter’ line item, which includes a Zoning Confirmation or Verification Letter. The fee schedule lists the Zoning Letter fee as $75 per GPIN,” Cantu wrote in a November 13 email to the Advance.
Cantu said the city does not receive requests for zoning determinations often.
“Zoning Determination Letters are rare for the City as a separate act from the approval or denial of an application by the legislative process, if applicable, or an administrative decision by the subdivision agent/development administrator or zoning administrator,” she said.
The city has issued one zoning determination letter in the past five years, in 2021, which was processed using the zoning verification fee, at the time $60 per individual parcel. That request was for two parcels.
In his letter this week, Hampshire argues that zoning determinations are completely different from zoning verifications.
“[A zoning determination] asks about a particular use of property that often can include an assemblage, while [a zoning verification] asks about the zoning status of individual parcels,” Hampshire wrote. “The former thus does not require a parcel-by-parcel determination of zoning status with the time spent being a multiple of the time needed to verify each of the 63 parcels. The $75 per parcel fee, therefore, is not reasonably related to the request about a particular proposed use of all parcels as a single proposed use under a single site plan.”
Hampshire wrote that the fee assessment, which he said is not related to the service provided, does not represent “good government in service of its citizens.”
“To multiply the fee for a Request for Determination about a single use by 63 would thus either constitute a windfall to the City in the form of an unconstitutional exaction or chill Zoning Determinations with a deprivation of substantive and procedural due process,” he wrote.
The City Council ordinance approving the fee schedule states that, “The fees outlined in this ordinance are reasonably calculated to reflect the costs of administering these programs, taking into account the time, skill, and expense required, including the expense of providing statutory notice of public hearings.”
In her email, Cantu noted that Stafford County charges a flat fee of $2,800 for a zoning determination.
Machen, the city’s zoning administrator, said in an email to Hampshire that once the application fee has been received, the zoning determination will be rendered within 90 days.
In his original letter requesting a zoning determination, Hampshire wrote, “The purpose of this letter is to request you to issue a Zoning Determination [stating that] approval of that site plan application … would violate the City’s Zoning Ordinance because: (1) the re-subdivision of lots it proposes cannot be approved administratively and (2) the proposed site plan would violate the density limitations of the Creative Maker District.”
A zoning determination would constitute an official, legal determination of the issues Hampshire has raised on behalf of his clients concerning Mary’s Landing. His clients could then appeal that decision to the Board of Zoning Appeals and then to Circuit Court.
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Poorly planned. Turn it down and move on. Not good for the city or those near it.
Could the Advance explain the underlying issues in this argument? Is it a question of the validity of grandfather clauses in determining whether an existing use or older legal status, which conflicts with new regulations, is still valid? If time erodes zoning validity, how much time does it?
If the neighborhood coalition has its way, would that undermine the use, say, of alleyways in the older part of the city that have been taken over by neighboring houses?