A theme for next week's Christiansburg Planning Commission (PC) and Town Council (TC) meetings could be "If at first you don't succeed; try, try again."
Let's look at PC meeting Monday at 4 pm first.
After an application for a conditional use permit in a historic district was denied by the PC, followed by a sudden production of conditions allowing immediate approval by the TC -- the PC was told to "examine historic district overlays." That was March 2008 and since then it appears to have been crawling along, with a proposed survey of existing Historic Districts to be presented at the PC meeting on Monday at 4pm.
This has direct links with goals found within the town's Comprehensive Plan, even if these existing districts are not denoted on the town's present and future zoning maps. This has direct links to economic development in Christiansburg, aligning with tourism and establishing an antiques corridor approved by council in December 2007.
The PC's next agenda item takes the public body just down the street and back to 520 & 540 Depot Street, to hear council's intention to adopt an ordinance to rezone property from I-2 to B-3. About a year ago, this property was the subject of another conditional use permit seeking to allow a "recycling" facility, which was subsequently denied due to safety and environmental concerns and later went before the Board of Zoning Appeals.
Since then, this property has seen the number of junk vehicles expand, springing up like dandelions. While the town's B-3 zoning designation does allow for general business where the public requires direct and frequent access, it does not provide access for constant, heavy trucking (other than delivery of light retail goods) or other nuisance factors.
B-3 districts include retail stores, banks, theaters, newspaper offices or printing presses, restaurants or taverns, or garages and service stations. "Or garages and service stations" is the sticking point with this request, because it brings one back to the safety and environmental concerns the town has relative to protecting both the adjacent Crab Creek watershed and established historic districts.
The town's Zoning definitions state a garage (public) is a building or portion there, designed or used for servicing, repairing, equipping, renting, selling or storing motor-driven vehicles. A junkyard is synonymous with automobile graveyards or salvage yards, per town's code; defined as the use of any area in any location for the storage, keeping or abandonment of junk.
When is an automobile junk? When it isn't registered for a state tag or doesn't have a current state inspection or town sticker. There's a lot of other rules about storing and screening vehicles that are being repaired, too, that won't be addressed in this post.
Leave it to say what is happening on this property does not appear to be environmentally friendly, complementary to perceptions relative to historic districts, something citizens want visitors to the new aquatic center to drive past, or what one thinks of for a "business" district (ie banks, theaters, restaurants and taverns, or offices).
All the remaining PC agenda items are continuing topics, as well. Come back soon to read the next post on this theme, as relates to the TC meeting Tuesday at 7:30 pm.