[EyesOnIvy] Daily Progress 8/19/03: Judge hears objections to firm's move

[Brian Wheeler]

The Daily Progress, August 19, 2003

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Judge hears objections to firm's move

By David Dadurka  / Daily Progress staff writer

An attorney representing Ivy residents said in Albemarle County Circuit
Court on Monday that county officials incorrectly upheld a decision that
would allow a local construction company to move into the neighborhood.

Faulconer Construction Co. has proposed to build an office and
maintenance facility on a 27-acre site off Morgantown Road zoned for
light industrial use.

The company, which employs about 150 people, builds roads and bridges in
Virginia and North Carolina.

Ivy residents have protested the proposed facility since 2001, claiming
that the company’s tractor-trailers would have to travel down a narrow
stretch of road near a preschool and an elementary school.

They also have claimed that the company’s storage of dynamite and
chemicals would create environmental hazards for the community.

The construction office and maintenance facility would generate
“substantial noise,” said Tom Hutchinson, whose property abuts the
Faulconer site.

“The garage will change the character of the neighborhood,” he said.

Albemarle Circuit Judge Paul M. Peatross Jr. said he would issue an
opinion in the next two weeks upholding or overturning the county Board
of Zoning Appeals’ decision to allow the company’s project to go
forward.

Frank Buck, an attorney representing Ivy residents whose properties
adjoin the proposed office and storage yard, said the parcel’s zoning
doesn’t permit the construction company to operate a maintenance
facility or “garage” on site.

Attorneys spent most of the day debating the difference between a
contractor’s storage yard and an equipment storage yard.
“They want to do more than storage,” Buck said.

Denise Hyland, another neighbor of the proposed site on Morgantown Road,
said she was worried about erosion associated with grading for the new
maintenance shop.

“We are downstream and in a protected watershed,” said Hyland, noting
that she feared solvents and oil that might be stored there could leak
into a nearby stream.

John Zunka, an attorney for Faulconer Construction, said, “At best, the
appellants are looking to wordsmith county definitions.”

By Buck’s interpretation of Albemarle regulations, Zunka said, fire and
rescue stations would be required to take vehicles off site for repairs
and other services.

“They couldn’t wash a fire truck because they would be considered a car
wash,” Zunka said.

Buck, however, countered that if the Board of Supervisors had intended
to allow a repair shop, they would have included it in the law.

“We are asking the court to interpret it as written,” he said.

Faulconer Construction managers testified that they try to do as much
equipment maintenance as possible at job sites, but Buck pointed to
company records that indicated, in one of several cases, mechanics spent
nearly a month trying to fix a backhoe at their Woodburn Road storage
yard.

Buck said that Amelia G. McCulley, Albemarle’s zoning administrator,
unintentionally “misled the Board of Zoning Appeals as to the scope of
use” at the site.

Greg Kamptner, Albemarle’s assistant county attorney, however, said that
during the Sept. 11, 2001, appeal hearing, McCulley did describe how
Faulconer would be making repairs such as removing and replacing
transmissions, as they do at their current location.

Contact David Dadurka at (434) 978-7299 or ddadurka at dailyprogress.com.