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Neighbors oppose eatery Restaurant is in residential zone
Restaurant downtown has sparked debate about businesses in residential neighborhoods.
Date published: 3/25/2006
By EMILY BATTLE A small restaurant on Fredericksburg's Littlepage Street has sparked a debate over what kind of business fits in in a residential neighborhood. Several of the people who live around the Sunken Well Tavern see the restaurant as a threat to peace in their neighborhood. Lots of other residents of the neighborhood say it's a welcome place where they can walk to grab a meal and get reacquainted with the people who live around them. The dispute has been brewing since last fall, and it now sits before Fredericksburg's Board of Zoning Appeals, which will take it up next month. A date for that meeting has not been set yet. Meanwhile, the restaurant's owners are on pins and needles watching a process that will decide the fate of a venture into which they've invested everything they have. Paul Stoddard, Steve Cameli and Rob Ivy met when they all came to Mary Washington College. Stoddard is 26, and Cameli and Ivy are 27. Shortly after graduating, the three started working for local restaurateur Moe Roman, owner of Wings on the Water, Fatty J's and Buffalo Moe's Tap and Grill. "Ultimately, we wanted to open up a restaurant that was more centered around food," Stoddard said. The group started scoping out locations, and decided on the building at 720 Littlepage, largely because it was small enough that they wouldn't have to hire a large staff. In July, the three applied for a zoning certificate from the city, and Planning Director Ray Ocel approved the restaurant as a nonconforming use. A nonconforming use is one that wouldn't be allowed as a new use in the zoning district it's in, but that is permitted to continue because it was there before the zoning changed. In this case, the building at 720 Littlepage St. was in commercial use long before the neighborhood was zoned residential. The building's owner has a right to continue that use, but he can't expand it, and he can't re-establish it if it's abandoned for more than a year. Craig and Maureen Jones own the building, and it has served as a neighborhood restaurant and store for decades.
Read more stories about Fredericksburg Date published: 3/25/2006
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