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Court agrees to hear evidence in subdivision denial, but encourages another approach. Date published: 9/26/2006 By MEGHANN COTTER
By MEGHANN COTTER
A Circuit Court judge agreed yesterday to hear evidence in a case involving the denial of a subdivision plan for Crow's Nest A trial date will be set soon. But Judge H. Harrison Braxton encouraged Stafford County to first consider giving the landowner an opportunity to resolve its issues with the Planning Commission. He cannot legally order them to do so. Attorneys are discussing that option. K&M Properties of McLean, developing Crow's Nest as Stafford Lakes Limited Partnership, wants to put 688 homes on 3,230 acres of the environmentally sensitive peninsula. Planning Director Jeff Harvey formally recommended approval of the plan three times before the Planning Commission took up the matter in January. But he reversed his position in a memo handed out just minutes before the meeting, where the plan was unanimously denied. Ten deficiencies, ranging from improper lot sizes, lack of information on maps and inaccurate dimensions in the subdivision's design were cited. David Stoner, outside counsel representing the county, excused the change in opinion, saying staff and the Planning Commission operate independently. "It would have been no different if the planning director's decision had stayed the same and the Planning Commission disagreed," he said. "There's nothing that anyone on the staff could have said or done to exempt Stafford Lakes from complying with the zoning ordinance. These aren't practices and procedures. These are ordinance requirements." Stoner said Stafford Lakes officials should have spoken up at the Planning Commission meeting. "They were present. Nothing precluded them from standing up and requesting a continuance," he said. "We can't know now how Stafford Lakes would have addressed those deficiencies. Today they've tried to ignore them, tried to push them under the rug." County officials had hoped the judge would throw out the case on those grounds yesterday. But Hunton & Williams attorney Courtney Sydnor, who represents K&M, successfully argued that her client was not given an opportunity to comment on the memo and its application, as every other applicant was that night. They would have explained, she said, that the problems raised are typically addressed in the construction or final plat phase.
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