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Planning Commission
On June 6, Clarke County residents will get a chance to tell planning commissioners what they think about a proposal to amend the zoning ordinance to classify flagpoles as structures and limit their height.
The public hearing will be during the commission’s monthly meeting, scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. that day in the county courthouse in Berryville.
The question of whether a flagpole is a structure was at the heart of a long-running dispute between the late Jerry Kirk, a Waterloo businessman, and the county Board of Zoning Appeal, which said an 80-foot flagpole at Kirk’s Apple Blossom U-Store-It violated the 40-foot height limit allowed in the highway commercial zoning district.
Kirk appealed that decision in 2006, and his family continued to pursue the case after his death in May 2007. Earlier this year, a circuit court ruled in their favor, stating a flagpole could not be considered a structure under the ordinance.
The ordinance would define a structure as “anything constructed or erected, the use of which requires permanent location on the ground, or attachment to something having a permanent location on the ground, except utility poles.” Flagpoles would be on a list of structures that also includes chimneys, cupolas, smokestacks, spires and towers.
Currently, the height limit for structures in the highway commercial zoning district is 40 feet; in the neighborhood commercial district, 30 feet; and in agricultural and forestal open space conservation districts and rural residential districts, 35 feet.
At their May 2 meeting, commissioners decided not to accept a staff suggestion that flagpoles be allowed to exceed the maximum height limit in these zoning districts by 50 percent
Flagpoles should be the same height as other structures in each respective district, Commissioner Pat McKelvy said.
“I think we have a need for consistency,” McKelvy said.
On June 6, commissioners also will continue a public hearing on a request by H.N. Funkhouser & Co. of Winchester for approval of a site plan for a gas station/convenience store and several fast-food franchises on 2.2 acres at the intersection of routes 50 and 340 in Waterloo.
Contact the reporter at rmarlow@timespapers.com
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