New Kent Charles City Chronicle

News for New Kent County and Charles City County, Virginia | March 28, 2024

NK planners give negative nod to mini-storage concept

By Alan Chamberlain | April 23, 2008 11:53 am

George Philbates Jr. says he can live without the mini-storage building and fenced in area for storing recreational vehicles he plans to build across Route 249 from the auto wrecking and salvage yard he operates in New Kent County. He may have to.

Monday night, New Kent’s Planning Commission voted 7-1 with one abstention to recommend that the county’s Board of Supervisors turn down a rezoning request that would pave the way for Philbates’ project.

Philbates and his wife, Rebecca, have applied to rezone just over four acres across Route 249 (New Kent Highway) from their business, Philbates Auto Wrecking and Towing. The land is currently zoned for agriculture. The Philbates are seeking a B-2 Business Limited designation.

Monday night, Philbates pledged not to build on the property until a tree/shrub buffer has matured enough to obscure the site from view. The storage business would fill a community need, he said, since there are no facilities for storing boats and recreational vehicles in the area.

“I could live without it, but I think this would be the best use of this land,” he said.

County planning department staff disagree, saying business zoning runs contrary to the county’s Comprehensive Land Use Plan, which designates the site in question as “rural land.” And some of Philbates’ neighbors are also in opposition.

“It’s bad for everybody on this highway,” neighbor Ed Grablewski told the commission during Monday’s public hearing on the proposal.

Grablewski labeled Philbates’ salvage yard as “a terrific eyesore,” adding that allowing a storage business into the mix would lower land values. Grablewski and another neighbor, Ed Langenhennig, whose property borders the proposed storage site, said another business would conflict with Route 249’s status as a Virginia Scenic By-way.

The storage site falls into a 600-foot-wide buffer zone formed as part of the state scenic by-way designation, planner Kelli Le Duc told the commission.

Another neighbor, Samuel Twiggs, expressed concern about erosion that could take place if the site, which was built up using fill dirt and other material, is not properly compacted before structures are placed on top.

Joan Wollin, who lives a short distance away on Fern Lake Drive, took issue with Philbates’ claim that creating a storage yard for recreational vehicles would be doing a community service. She also fired a shot at Philbates’ salvage yard.

“How could that man in good conscience degrade the land the way he has?” she said. “If he’s allowed to do that, there will be others who come after him to do the same thing.”

One neighbor, Cook’s Mill Road resident Gloria Geiger, sided with the Philbates.

“I have no objection to changing the use of the land. There’s no other use for it,” she told the commission.

But Geiger and commission member Patty Townsend constituted the minority.

“This would be ideal for Route 33,” commission member Jack Chalmers said. “I can’t see it on a scenic by-way. Some of the homes over there are right out of post cards.”

Chalmers said proffers by the Philbates, including the planting of trees and shrubs to block the storage site from public view, “are not sufficient to offset what this will do to the county.”

Commission member Brenda “Sam” Snyder, who made the motion for an unfavorable recommendation, said approving the request could set a precedent and open the door to other developers.

The commission’s recommendation now heads to supervisors who have the final say in the matter.