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Stafford Planning Commission can't review proposal until Board of Zoning Appeals hears case.

Date published: 12/24/2005

By MEGHANN COTTER

Stafford County residents Linda and Jack Fellers aren't exactly standing in front of the bulldozers that K&M Properties wants to bring onto Crow's Nest.

But if the earth movers have to come, the Aquia couple wants to take steps to ensure the work won't impact their home, which overlooks the peninsula on the Accokeek Creek side.

They are worried that certain parts of the county code are not being enforced. They've asked the county Board of Zoning Appeals to evaluate the validity of some items in the McClean developer's proposal.

K&M Properties wants to build 688 homes on 3,230 acres of the pristine peninsula. And Stafford officials have forwarded the company's preliminary subdivision plan to the Planning Commission, saying the application meets all code requirements.

But David Bailey, the Fellerses' Beaverdam attorney, said his clients believe the company's plan violates several provisions of the Chesapeake Bay Act.

The appeal claims that documents related to those rules are missing or incomplete, and that some lots are too close to streams and wetlands.

Bailey said the matter belongs before the Board of Zoning Appeals, rather than the Planning Commission, because the Fellerses are questioning an administrative decision regarding the zoning ordinance.

The Planning Commission would have reviewed K&M's plan last Monday night. But state law says all proceedings about the development must halt until the Board of Zoning Appeals hears the appeal. The hearing is scheduled for Feb. 28.

That's a frustrating blow for K&M, said Clark Leming, the firm's Stafford attorney.

This is the second appeal the company has faced in the past year while trying to get county approval to develop Crow's Nest.

The first, filed by Stafford resident Patricia Kurpiel in the spring, questioned the completeness of the preliminary subdivision plan.

But Code Administrator Dan Schardein ruled that it was not an appropriate matter to send to the Board of Zoning Appeals, which upheld his decision when Kurpiel later appealed it, as well. That claim is now waiting to be heard in Circuit Court.

County policy has since changed, and Schardein said he must now forward all appeals to the Board of Zoning Appeals.

Both appeals have significantly delayed K&M's progress on this increasingly expensive project, Leming said.

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Date published: 12/24/2005