Refresh PornNewz for the latest stories!

PornNewz Goes out to Stores, Distributors and Interweb Nuts all over the freakin' place!!
Our advertising team visits stores around the country everyday!!

EASTVILLE, VA — Northampton County’s draft zoning ordinance would require a special-use permit to build or open a church in almost all zoning districts, a clause that drew the ire of an area minister at a public meeting last week.

The proposed provision would require a public hearing and a vote by the Board of Supervisors before churches could open — moves that detractors say are unconstitutional.

The pastor of historic Shorter’s Chapel AME Church in Bridgetown opposed key aspects of pending zoning ordinance amendments during the citizens’ information period at the regular session of the board of supervisors here last Tuesday.

“I and other pastors in Northampton are against the proposed designation of special use for churches, instead of by-right use,” said the Rev. Debbie Lee Bryant.

“Northampton County would become the only county in Virginia to designate churches special use,” she said. “Most churches in Northampton County are small to medium churches with cemeteries.”

Amendments to the zoning ordinance, which the planning commission has been working on for nearly two years since it first scheduled a public hearing and later cancelled it due to an advertising error, will receive a final review by commissioners tonight.

The final draft is scheduled to be completed Sept. 25 and will receive a final planning commission review on Oct. 1 and 2. Supervisors will have the final say its adoption.

Planning Director Sandra Benson said the proposed zoning of churches drew “a heated discussion among the planning commission.”

Bryant said Shorter’s Chapel is locked in by a marsh, its own cemetery and another property owner.

“Should we grow more, we can build up and out a little. Because of the historical significance of the site, we would never move.”

The church was founded in 1866 at its current location — the site of the Bridgetown Elementary School, one of the first African-American schools established by the Freedmen’s Bureau after the Civil War.

Bryant is seeking historic designation for the site. Bridgetown is the oldest village on the Shore, she said, continuously inhabited since the 1660s.

She took issue with the special use zoning for churches because it would require extensive environmental, engineering and architectural plans that “most churches can’t afford.”

“The special-use designation is excessive and fails to adopt the least restrictive means of by-right use,” Bryant said.

“Excluding churches from residential districts imposes an unconstitutional burden on the practice of religious beliefs, given in the First Amendment. Churches further public morals and the general welfare of the public.

“The special-use designation is clearly arbitrary, exclusionary and unreasonable,” she said.

She also opposed changing the church’s zoning from residential to agricultural, saying it would wipe out the historically significant community.

The church, she said, is “against the proposed zoning from a residential district now, where churches and single-family residential are in conformance, to your proposed agricultural zoning where churches and single-family residential would be in non-conformance.”

Bryant said the church and homes could not be rebuilt if they burned down after the area was rezoned agricultural.

Shorter’s Chapel parishioners live in Bridgetown, Birdsnest, Treherneville, Machipongo, Weirwood, Hare Valley, Cheriton and Wardtown, the pastor said.

“These communities are against the proposed zoning change in their neighborhoods and are against many of the agricultural uses,” she said, including “temporary farm worker housing,” and many commercial uses.

She said there are ongoing community-visioning meetings in those areas where residents discuss what they want in terms of low-impact business, agricultural uses and the incorporation of the communities “so they can get the needed services their taxes should pay for.”

“The proposed zoning ordinance would cause undue harm to the residents; change the residential character of their historic neighborhoods and would decrease their property values,” Bryant said, adding that petitions supporting the communities’ opposition would be presented before the county holds public hearings on the proposed zoning ordinance amendments.


Comments

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Our Title

Our Sponsor

Sponsor Links

Clickable version of PornNewz newzletter!!

To advertise with us: