Rural development debate divides Albemarle officials

Ronnie and Janie Matheny had hoped to subdivide their 4.9-acre property in western Albemarle County to give 2 acres to their grandson. But the Board of Supervisors said no.

The case has resurrected a debate about how firmly the county should enforce policies designed to keep rural Albemarle undeveloped and how much flexibility property owners should be granted.

“It’s a classic conflict,” said Board of Supervisors Chairman David L. Slutzky, adding that the county has veered away from granting special requests for new development rights in the county’s rural area.

However, county officials were split on whether an exception should have been made for the Mathenys.

A county staff report recommended the board grant the Mathenys an additional development right even though doing so would “not normally [be] in accord with the purposes of the rural areas zoning district.”

“The addition of one family dwelling to the area,” the report states, “is not expected to create a significant difference in the character of the area.”

County staff recommended that the Mathenys be allowed the new development under the classification of a “family subdivision,” which would require the land to be kept in the family for at least four years.

The Matheny couple maxed out their development rights when they divided their 17-acre property in the Samuel Miller District several ways to give land to their children.

The most recent request was to split a little more than 2 acres from a 4.9-acre parcel to give to their grandson. But to do so, the Mathenys would have had to receive a special-use permit from the Board of Supervisors.

The Mathenys say the county treated them unfairly, arguing that the land has been family-owned for decades and they should have flexibility with how they use their property, particularly considering that another home on the site would generate additional tax revenue for the county.

“I think it’s a violation of my civil rights,” Ronnie Matheny has said.

Lindsay G. Dorrier Jr. and Kenneth C. Boyd were the only supervisors on the six-member board to vote in favor of the special-use permit.

Slutzky, who voted against the permit, said that he wouldn’t want to make special accommodations at the expense of the county’s rural protection strategy.

“We on the board are responsible for thinking about these things, not just at the individual property level, but as a matter of county policy,” Slutzky said in a recent interview. “The big question we have here is: Is the county serious about protecting the rural areas and limiting development activities to the development areas or not?”

Officials who opposed granting the Mathenys a permit said doing so would have set a bad precedent. The Albemarle Planning Commission opposed the permit by a vote of 4 to 2.

Supervisor Sally H. Thomas said that the Mathenys were just one of hundreds of families that would like special permission for new rural area developments.

Boyd, however, said that he doesn’t buy the idea that approving a permit for the Mathenys would have set a bad precedent.

“I think we have both the right and the ability to just take the [county’s] Compre-hensive Plan as a guideline,” Boyd said in a recent interview. He said at the board meeting that the board ought to show “compassion” and “common sense.”

Rodney S. Thomas, a former Planning Commission member, said that his position on property rights likely will become a campaign issue.

Thomas, a Republican, is challenging Slutzky, a Democrat, for the Rio District seat in the November election.

“I’m not in favor of paving the county over. Never have been. Never will be,” Rodney Thomas said. “But I like property rights.”

Thomas said that he wouldn’t overhaul the county’s Comprehensive Plan but instead would examine each development request that comes before the board on an individual basis. He said that he “more than likely” would have voted to give the Mathenys an additional development right.

“All they wanted to do was have one more development right so they could build another separate house on that property,” Thomas said. “Their sole reason was because of their family ... and they like to stick together.”

Slutzky said that he hopes Thomas makes the Matheny case a campaign issue as part of a property-rights debate.

He said that he’s supported accommodations for family subdivisions in cases in which property owners use existing development rights, such as “in cases where stream buffers and other restrictions might make those development rights otherwise unusable.”

However, Slutzky said that he doesn’t favor rezoning rural land to allow more houses to be built. The community has shown enthusiastic support for the county’s Comprehensive Plan and has continuously stressed the importance of protecting rural areas, he said.

“People who own rural-area development rights are basically speculative investors who own a real-estate development right that they hope to be able to use later and get money for,” Slutzky said.

Wayne Cilimberg, the county’s planning director, said that there have been 20 requests for new rural area development rights since the early 1980s, 10 of which were granted. Of those granted, five were family subdivisions.

Sally Thomas, however, said that in her 16 years as a supervisor, a request granted to the North Garden fire station in 2007 is the only case she remembers in which the board approved a new rural area development right.