Printer-Friendly
Email this Story
Post a Comment (0)
Rural use vs. historic district lawsuit starts, no end in sight
After two days in Circuit Court, May 7 and 8, Sally and John Roy Mann's lawsuit challenging their neighbor's plan to build a barn on his property is nowhere near finished.
Judge Thomas D. Horne will set a court date for the continuation May 16. One lawyer involved said it might not get back to court until next July.
The county argued in court that allowing the Manns to prevail would gut the Goose Creek Historic District's statutory protections of the rural economy.
The Manns are challenging the Board of Supervisors' vote that the county's zoning administrator was correct in issuing a permit for Keith and Cheryl Early to build a barn on their 147-acre property south of Hamilton. Zoning Administrator Melinda Artman ruled, and the Board of Zoning Appeals agreed, the Earlys do not have to apply to the Historic District Review Committee for a Certificate of Appropriateness to build a "bona fide agricultural" structure.
The Manns live on 37 acres on Harmony Church Road south of Hamilton. Keith and Cheryl Early live just west of them and have been developing their property to breed and raise thoroughbred race horses.
The Manns charge the proposed barn violates the Goose Creek Historic District protections of scenic viewsheds.
With no barn while the lawsuit worked its way through the legal system over the last two years, the Earlys parked two hay storage trailers on the site that had been prepared for the barn.
John Flannery, attorney for the Manns, argued last week that the "so-called" barns are really "equipment hangars" intended for parking large trailers.
Testimony from the Earlys' adviser, Mark Deane, supported that but established that the barns are designed like those on large Kentucky thoroughbred breeding farms – build the barn large enough to pull a storage trailer in and leave it there until all the hay has been fed. Then pull the empty one out and pull in a full one.
Deane's testimony also appeared to refute Flannery's charge that "this is no agricultural building. This property is intended for horse racing, not agriculture."
According to Deane, mares would give birth, foals would be raised, and yearlings and 2-year-old horses would start their training at the farm. All racing activities would take place at a racetrack somewhere else.
Testimony appeared to rebut the charge that other applicants had been treated differently.
The Manns called Elizabeth Brabec, a professor of landscape architecture and published author on historic preservation, as their expert witness. Brabec argued the ordinance requires not only that the building be "bona fide agricultural," but that it not have a detrimental effect on the 10,600-acre historic district.
Placement of the Earlys' barns on the highest point of a ridge line, she said, would have a "clear and substantial detrimental impact" on the historic district.
Under cross-examination, Brabec conceded that development of a residential subdivision on the Manns' property, next to the historic district but not in it, would "in all likelihood" have a detrimental effect on the view from Harmony Church Road.
The Manns submitted a plan to the Town of Hamilton this week to develop a residential subdivision of six one-acre lots clustered along the Harmony Church Road side of their property.
They also initiated another legal action against the Earlys. The latest lawsuit alleges that the hay-storage trailers violate the county's sign ordinance.
You must be logged in to post a comment.