Board speeds approval of tract removal for development
Sends errant Christian school’s application
back to Planning Commission

By DAN PARSONS

James City County supervisors spent part of Tuesday night correcting mistakes, the first of which was their own.
Having failed to advertise the possible removal of a tract from the Gordon’s Creek Agricultural and Forestal District for the Village at Ford’s Colony development, the Board of Supervisors approved an emergency ordinance to accomplish the removal, allowing the development to move forward.
Supervisor James Icenhour, who represents the Powhatan District, voiced concern that the passage of an emergency ordinance in that instance was sending the wrong message to county residents. He said the emergency ordinance in question was an “abuse” of that power bestowed upon the board by the General Assembly.
The board had the option of sending the application for removal back to the county Planning Commission for review. The board could then have re-advertised the proposal, allowing the public time to comment before a vote was taken.
“When we did not send it back, what we said to the public was … “It’s already been decided,’” Icenhour said at the board’s regular August meeting Tuesday night. “We don’t have a standard by which to apply an
emergency ordinance. When we (apply an emergency ordinance) it should be for the public at large. That’s not what happened here.”
Icenhour charged the board with working in the interest of the developers of the Village at Ford’s Colony, rather than the public.
Jim Kennedy, supervisor for the Stonehouse District, responded by listing instances when the board had invoked their emergency powers. From 1986 until 1996, the board used emergency ordinances to acquire real property, toggle courthouse fees and alter park-usage rules, according to Kennedy.
“The emergency ordinance has been used before in a variety of situations and I don’t think any of these could be classified as duly an emergency,” Kennedy said, prefacing his support for the proposal.
Board Chairman Bruce Goodson chided the Planning Commission for failing to provide supervisors with adequate guidance on how to proceed. He said the commission’s non-committal 3-3 vote on the removal application was less a vote on the proposal than one over whether an emergency ordinance was in this case valid.
“The case in front of the PC was removal from the AFD, not the use of an emergency ordinance,” he said. “I support removal tonight. … That’s the case before us. The emergency in this case was that the county dropped the ball. The reason the state allows us to use the emergency ordinance is so we can rectify situations like this.”
The proposal passed 3-2 with Icenhour and Supervisor John McGlennon voting against the measure. Another mistake, made this time by the applicant for a special-use permit, was caught by county staff Monday. Supervisors were set to vote on whether to permit King’s Way Church to expand Greenwood Christian Academy on Tuesday night. However, Senior Planner Jason Purse discovered Monday that the church, already permitted to operate a preschool within its existing building on John Tyler Highway, was operating outside its SUP in also offering first through third grades at the school.
McGlennon brought the church’s violation to light Tuesday evening. In light of the church’s operation outside its existing permit, he recommended the application for expanding the school be sent back to the Planning Commission for review.
If approved, the applied-for expansion would allow the church to offer pre-k through fifth grade in a new, three-story, 24,000-square-foot building to be constructed within the 4.5-acre lot on which the church stands. Already serving about 200 students, the expansion would bring the school’s enrollment to about 300, according to Chris Johnson, who represented the King’s Way Church at Tuesday’s meeting.
Johnson asked that the board expedite the review of the application should it be remanded to the Planning Commission and apologized to the board for the school’s violation.
“We agree that a mistake has been made and that we made it,” Johnson said. “It is our hope that … we will have an application that is fully supported by the board.”
The application was sent to the board with the Planning Commission having recommended denial 5-2 last month. Residents of the community surrounding the church spoke up Tuesday in disapproval of the proposed expansion. Some claimed the church had been less than a hospitable neighbor, others that the size of the proposed expansion was contrary to the historic character of their neighborhood.
“I was surprised to learn the school was operating in violation of its special-use permit,” Kristin King, a mother and former teacher that lives near the church, told supervisors Tuesday. “King’s Way became a part of the neighborhood because it was a church, not because it was a school.”
Without the proposed expansion, Greenwood Christian Academy has created more traffic on already congested and “dangerous” intersections on Route 5, King said. She also said retirees living near the school are being bothered by noise from the school’s playground.
At McGlennon’s suggestion, the board agreed to remand the church’s application for expansion to the Planning Commission with the understanding that no reprisal would be handed down for the church’s current non-compliance. McGlennon said he did not want to “hold hostage” students and parents already enrolled in elementary grade classes at the school while the planning commission reviews the church’s SUP.
The issue brought to mind a larger question of procedure for Kennedy, who asked that in the future applicants for special-use permits be carefully scrutinized for compliance before permits are approved.
“I want to see a change in our policy for some checks and balances to make sure the conditions of SUPs are met,” he said. “I think that should be a condition for approval.”