Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

All right. Welcome to the town of Abington, Virginia Planning Commission regular meeting. We appreciate your interest and we encourage public participation in our meeting. Your comments are important to our decision-making process. Please note that there will be two opportunities for you to address the commission. The first will come when we ask for public comment for items not on the agenda. The second will come if there is a public hearing. When the chair opens the public hearing for comment, anyone addressing the commission will approach the podium. Give your first and last name and your complete physical address. Comments must be limited to three minutes. Uh roll call.

Mr. Austin. Mr. Johnson, present. Mr. Thompson present. Mr. Pennington present. Mr. Sprouls present. Mr. Wilson present. And Mr. Schuman present. Uh the next order of business is approval of the minutes from the March 23rd, 2026 regular meeting. Um has everybody had the opportunity to review those minutes? Are there any additions or corrections to the minutes? If not, is there a motion that they be approved as submitted? So moved. Is there a second? Second. All right. You call the role. Mr. Austin here.

Mr. Johnson. I. Mr. Thompson. I. Mr. Pennington. I. Mr. Scrolls. I. Mr. Wilson. Abstain. I was not here. And Mr. Schuman. I would abstain. I was not here. Okay. But I do. We do appreciate Mr. Johnson chairing the meeting in our absence. Well, well done.

All right. Um, next order of business is public comment for items not on the agenda. Don't see any. Uh, next order of business is certificate of appropriateness, Edward C. and Jennifer D. Hobbs applicant owner certificate of appropriateness for changes to the December 15, 2025 approved ECCOA for suite and exter for site and exterior changes located at 602 through 608 West Main Street, Abington, Virginia 24210 parentheses parcel 018-15-26 in parenthesis staff report. And as Amber is coming along uh doing the staff report, there will be the new colors coming around to you guys to see too. Sorry.

As Amber's going through the staff report, the new colors that is getting proposed are coming to you guys right here. The new colors.

Edward C and Jennifer D. Hobbs, applicant owner, have requested approval of a COA for the following items. Paint the exposed brick and wall on the northeast and west elevations. Sherwin Williams 7570 Egret White. Paint the exposed vinyl siding on the northeast and west elevations. Sherwin Williams 7673 futurecast. Paint the exterior south elevation CMU wall Sherwin Williams 7570 Egret white and the rear doors Sherwin Williams 7673 Peter Cast or black and ECCA waiver eligible items. She will be adding some benches, landscaping pots in front of the buildings on the asphalt to prohibit illegal parking. That's a chat GBT rendering. So, it's not actually going to be located right there. They would be kind of pushed further back in front of the actual buildings um in between where the sidewalk curb cuts are to again to allow to make sure people can't park right there. So you'll see on the image everywhere where the brick is, that will be the white. And then the up top vinyl portion with the board stacked vertically, those would be the gray. And that would follow along on both sides, um, east and west there, where the white will keep going. And then you have the gray on the top. Same thing on that side. White, then the gray. There's a close-up image of where the parking typically is. Um, and she's going to just again block that off with the planters and some benches as part of the facade grant. Um, it's that portion is ECCOA eligible waiver. And that's the back of the building. All that would be

painted white. The doors um gray or black. Um, and then the top of the again that Peter cast and you have the color swatches there in front of you and the applicant is here. There's any other questions? Any questions for Amber?

Would they still have the required parking after blocking off the front? Yeah. So, there would just be parking off like one person can only park there where they would be blocking it off. So, that um they're going to make an ADA accessible site um that first one. So, there's going to be a pathway um sidewalk um to in any of the suites there. Um they have um over 11 parking spots total. So, there's like nine in the back. Um and then there some on the side there as well. Other questions for Amber? All right, the applicant welcome to make a statement if you want to, but you don't have to.

Do I stand up here? You just come up here and and give your name and complete address. I'm Jennifer Hobbs, u owner of 602608 West Main Street. Um, one thing I wanted to clarify that Amber um presented the back of the building I would like to paint it the gray because there's a um and I don't think you said that did you Amber? I think I said

Okay. Right. That's what I thought. Um because the the roof is got there's like tar on the roof and the way it's sloped it kind of like um sometimes puts like markings on the back of the building. looks kind of, you know, kind of dirty. So, I'd like to do that. I just wanted to clarify that. Questions for Miss Hobbs?

All right. Thank you. Any additional discussion? If not, is there a motion? I'll make a motion to uh approve the COA as presented. All right. Is there a second? I'll second. All right. Any additional discussion? If not, if you would call the role. Mr. Johnson, I. Mr. Thompson. I. Mr. Pennington. I. Mr. Sprouls. I. Mr. Wilson. I. Mr. Schuman.

I next order business. Certificate of appropriateness. New Life Thrift Shop applicant James and Cynthia W. Hall owner Jerry Signs, Inc. representative. Certificate of appropriateness for non-elilluminated projecting signage and non-elilluminated window/door signage located at 246 West Main Street, Abington, Virginia, 24210. es parcel012-1-129 in parenthesis staff report new life thrift shop applicant James and Cynthia W Hall owner and Jerry Sign Inc. representative have requested approval of a certificate of appropriateness for the following items. Remove existing painted black steel scroll bracket and chains. Install one painted black steel scroll bracket in the exact location as existing painted black steel scroll bracket with more than 10 ft of clearance no more than 6 feet beyond the horizontal plane of the building and centered on the building between the existing painted white wooden secondstory windows on the primary north elevation. Install one 60inch x 24 inch 10 square feet non-illuminated double-sided aluminum projecting sign with applied white, blue, and black vinyl graphics hung from painted black steel scroll bracket as shown in the rendering provided. Remove existing window signage. Install one 68 in x 28.5 in 13.456 square ft non-illuminated single side applied white and blue vinyl graphics window sign. to the primary window on the primary north elevation as shown in the rendering provided. Install one 22 inch by 9.25 inch 1.41 square foot non-illuminated singlesided

applied white and blue vinyl graphics window sign to the primary entrance on the primary north elevation as shown in the rendering provided. It's located at 246 West Main Street in the B3 district. The existing building was constructed circa 1890 according to the Washington County Land Card. The building is currently occupied by New Life Thrift Shop. There's also one proposed hours of operation sign which will be allowed without permit. The New Life Thrift Shop has 401 square feet of window door area available on the first floor primary north elevation and is allowed a total of 40.1 square ft for window door signage. All proposed window door signage equals a total of 14.867 square ft and meets the requirements of the ordinance. Additional window signage will require ECCOA approval unless the planning commission sees fit to allow the applicant to work with staff to meet the remainder of the window door square footage aotment.

And the applicant is here if you have any questions. Any questions for him?

You're welcome to Jerry Signs to say something if you want to. Daniel Lord with Jerry signs 15775 Porterfield Highway. Really Amber summed up everything. There's not much else to add to it. The only reason we're removing the existing bracket is it is in pretty rough shape. That's the only reason for that. It's rusting. It's bent. It's just past its prime.

Questions? Mr. Right. Is there a motion from the planning commission? And I do have a question. You Amber, you kind of left it open in terms of for future signage. Is there thought that there might be do we need to allow I mean currently at this time the way Kathy's wanting to do it, she's wanting to get rid of the larger decal you can see in that rendering there because it's obstructing some of the view into. So she's actually going to downsize that, move it up so you can see entire storefront there. There's not really any I don't see anything arising to add more to it at this time. Okay. Now, if there if that happened, they would have to come back.

Well, that's what she kind of left open at the end with if they have additional room. That's what I was going to say. If somebody was making a motion on it, then if we're leaving them open, but if they're not really pushing for it, then do we do we just have them come back and do that at a later time? I I would think that they would probably have to come back because um we we wouldn't know what the proposal was without that without seeing it. So I would think that you know we we deal with this COA if there's a change that would be an additional COA at the time that the COA was requested. Otherwise, we wouldn't have any idea what what we were okay other than this questions or motion.

I think given that discussion, I would approve the CA as presented. All right. Is there a second? I'll second. All right. Any additional discussion? If not, if you would call the role. Mr. Johnson, I. Mr. Thompson, I. Mr. Pennington, hi. Mr. Sprouls. Hi, Mr. Wilson. Hi, and Mr. Schub. Um, old business matters not on the agenda. Anything?

Um, two. One sec here. First one, as I'm sure you've noticed, at 432 West Main Street, kind of across street from the William King Museum entrance there. Uh this was a gas station in a previous life and this was the ga the gas station canopy with it. Um they started taking down the canopy without a demolition permit or a ECCOA. Um so they've submitted an ECCOA and a demolition permit. Uh staff is asking if the plan commission would be okay with or be agreeable to instead of it having it be there for a month just sitting down like that. if you would want staff just to handle it administratively. It has no historical value. It's already down like this. So staff is asking if the plan commission sees it if agreeable if staff just handles it instead of it being there for a month just in that condition.

I would say is there is there any objection to that? If not, does anybody object to that? No. All right. Okay. So we will move forward with that. Yeah. I don't see having to wait a month and come back. Yeah. And that that was our thinking. We just didn't want to overstep our bounds and make sure that we've got permission from you guys first before we go and do that.

But we'll get that cleaned up for you there. Uh the other one is um if we could move the July planning commission date. Let me pull up the calendar here. The reason why we're requesting that doesn't show the calendar is because on the date that the plan commission meetings on me and Amber would we would like to go to the APA conference in Danville. It's a good opportunity where where we network and we bring things from other districts to here or we share things that we are doing over here with them. Uh so it just helps network and helps make sure that we're all on the same page with what's going around the state. So we would think probably for some reason that's not pulling up. Pull up July. So instead of the 27th it would be the 20th.

Okay. That received everybody. I'm going to be out of town. What about everybody else? July I will be out of town. I mean not that I'm Yeah. Well got to make sure we have a quarum. So you might I my calendar is a dry erase calendar on the house so I can't tell you on my phone what I'm doing but it seems to me there's something going on that we I'd have to email you or something.

If anything we can try to figure out another date that works. If you all all want to check your calendars and we can figure out a date that works. I mean that works okay for me. I I don't have anything on on the calendar for the 20th. Why don't we just go with that and then if there's an issue that arises, we'll figure out at that point. Okay. So, because we we could revisit that particularly at the June meeting. Yeah. And we've got time. We just saw it as a conflict. So, we want to bring up now. This way we're not at the 11th hour like, "Oh, wait. We got to do this." And we've got everybody rushing. So, we can move it to the 20th and then if something comes up or if we're having an issue, then we can figure out a different path forward. Yeah. We just want to be prepared and not be have everybody hustling to try and figure something out. So,

it hits me funny that anybody would actually want to go to Danville, but that's just that's where they that's where they picked it for this year. So, and we've I've gone to at least two or three of them. Amber went to uh No, you've been to the Tennessee ones. You went to CORE, but Kell's been to those and you know, we find it very beneficial and we actually find that we do a lot of stuff that we're actually ahead of the game than other localities are in Virginia. So, well, you know, that's you and I discussed the fact that there was that piece of legislation. Yeah.

In the general assembly this year to allow uh sheds in any district regardless of local ordinances and because we're Dylan's rule state, once the legislature says that, we're stuck with it. Yes. But you said that that our ordinance takes care of that.

Yeah. There's one for accessory dwelling units and we're already kind of ahead of that. That's one of the ones we're actually ahead of most localities. I found uh that and the recreational substance one I found when I was in the zoning uh uh call. We actually had we have something but a lot of other ones especially on the east coast don't which I found interesting. Um also there's stuff about manufactured housing that bill there's a bill for that and parking. So, me and Amber, we're going to be in a uh Zoom call with other zoners and planners in the state of Virginia to go over that. We'll probably have some uh edits to our code to reflect that legislation that's coming probably in July or August. We'll probably have that to you.

Well, it wouldn't go into effect in the state until July. July one. Yeah. So, we're going to have something to you guys, but just let you know there'll be some changes. That's because it's a statemandated change, nothing that we're proposing. But the ADU, we're pretty much already ahead of the game. There might be one or two tweaks, but not much. You once once the state does that, we're stuck with it. Yeah. I want until they change it again. So, um the other thing I was going to mention is the May meeting is May the 18th. Um I know I'm going to be out of town and that's kind of a busy time. I just want Don't you look over here. Yeah, we need ahead.

So, you can't do the 18. Yep. Anybody else? I wouldn't I wouldn't be on that one. And the reason why we changed that one was because Memorial Day is the usual day that it would have been. Uh, so if we can send out kind of a feeler for that day too, the 18th to see if what's that what's what's the temperature and if people are going to be missing then we can maybe say I know I'm I'm not going to be here and that's a that's a fairly busy time. Yeah. Now would be or would our fall back be June the 2nd?

It could be. Yeah. I would see we'll look at the dates and everything see how it lines up and then we'll send you out maybe some prospective dates if that one doesn't work and we'll kind of go from there. I don't think and Amber, you can correct me if I'm wrong. I don't think we have any ECCOAs, do we? We have one. Okay. So, right now we have just one for right now. So, we'll keep tabs on it and we'll see see what we have to do. Okay, that sounds good. Okay. All right. You all just need to do a better job.

Gabe, are there any updates on the comprehensive plan? No, I'm going to get that sent to our uh project managers. So, Kevin Worley um and Jamie Baker, which you well, I think most of you know, maybe not you, Mr. Thompson, but she was our she was taking minutes before. She's now in that role of reviewing uh contracts, procurement. There we go. That's the word I was looking for. Any other anything else for the good of the commission? If not, is there a motion to adjurnn? So moved. Is there a second? Second. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Any opposed?