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Notification
Procedures
One major problem
with Arlington County's zoning procedures is the weakness of the notification
requirements. This issue was noted in Williamsburg's Conservation Plan.
The section on Land Use and Zoning states:
Recommendation
40. Improve the procedures for notifying civic associations and
community residents about variance applications.
Unless neighbors
are aware of a variance request, they have no opportunity to let our
officials know how we feel about it. The current procedures are as follows:
- The County's
advertising requirements for Variances are in Section 36, Subsection
I, Advertising of the Zoning Ordinance. The County Code requires that
placards be posted on the subject property and at 4 places in the
surrounding area, but does not specify a time period prior to the
meeting that the placards be hung. County staff says that they try
to hang them at least a week before the meeting.
- Advertising must
also be done in conformance with Virginia Code Section 15.2-2204.
The State Code
requires advertisement in a local newspaper for 2 successive weeks
in advance of the Board of Zoning Appeals meeting.
- There is no State
or County Code requirement to notify adjacent property owners by mail.
- The County also
sends a list of variance requests to Civic Association presidents.
These lists are also available on the County
web site. However, these are not listed by civic association,
which makes it very difficult to figure out whether a given request
is within our boundary lines. Moreover, we have no timely way to communicate
a variance request to our residents.
Williamsburg Civic
Association has asked the County zoning office to adopt more comprehensive
notification procedures.
- We have asked
the zoning staff to list the variance requests by civic association.
- We have asked
the zoning staff to explore ways to provide citizens with the variance
requests directly through email (on request).
- We have asked
the zoning staff to explore ways to make the electronic listing of
variance requests searchable by civic association or map location
(i.e., a resident could ask for a list of all zoning requests within
a specified distance from his home.)
Stay tuned.
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