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Permit for rezoning approved by council
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Developers eye rehabilitation of vacant building near Shenandoah University
By J.R. Williams -- jrwilliams@nvdaily.com
WINCHESTER -- Local developers hoping to rehabilitate an apartment building for Shenandoah University students now have the blessing of the City Council.
Council members approved a request Tuesday night by Ron Kattas and Allen Smith of Next Home Management to rezone land at 208-218 E. Fairfax Lane.
The building, now vacant, has six units, and likely will remain that way, according to city planning documents.
According to a letter from Kattas and Smith, work is slated to begin upon closure of the sale with the building ready for tenants 18 months later.
Rent for the units would be between $800 and $1,300 per month, the letter states. Kattas and Smith say the building is in need of extensive exterior and interior renovations, including plumbing work, floor resurfacing, new appliances and countertops, along with new windows and landscaping.
The property's current zoning classification, limited high-density residential, does not permit multi-family residences. The City Council approved a switch to a residential business classification.
In other business, the Winchester City Council:
• Mayor Elizabeth Minor announced that paving on Berryville Avenue is nearing completion.
Paving from Pleasant Valley Road to the CVS drug store, at 840 Berryville Ave., will be completed by Thanksgiving, she said.
Minor also said that construction efforts throughout the city will be suspended for the holidays and will resume Jan. 4.
• Approved a resolution to accept a $3,748 grant from the Bureau of Justice Assistance for the purchase of 17 bulletproof vests.
The money represents a 50 percent reimbursement of costs to the city.
• Voted to remove a portion of city code that calls for two John Handley High School students to serve on the Winchester Parks and Recreation Board.
Although Handley students technically are supposed to be part of the board, no such appointments have been made for more than 20 years, according to city documents.
According to a letter from Parks and Recreation Director Brad Veach to council members, "the board members feel that annual stakeholder meetings will allow the public to provide input to the board on topics that are important to them."
• Voted to strike all furlough days from the city's fiscal 2010 budget and reinstate this Christmas Eve as a paid holiday for city employees.
• Approved a conditional-use permit request from Larry Hammack for an existing coin-operated laundry at 1009 Franklin St.
• Approved a conditional-use permit request from Maureen Keeler for a family day care on Christopher Drive.
Here we go again..
Our city finds a way to get around their furlough
days to get back in the money for them again.
We can't fight the city government when they can just vote the issues away in their favor.
We need to get back to reality and get our city and county government back to small town pay
instead of Washington,D.C. pay scale of where
some of the people do work for the city and are paid accordingly to the payscale in that area because of industry jobs and others that pay a fair wage( a living wage) not the high paying jobs in our area of around the highest of $9 hr.
The only good pay here is the local government.
They seem to make their own wages out of the blue. If you don't like them then we will offer more to have you sit around with them in their offices that are way to many doing part of a job that someone else was hired for and then split so they could hire someone else and not do to much work for their $80,000 plus jobs.
The worst is that we the people have less done for us than ever and some of the citizens are doing the things our city use to do as part of their jobs..
Enough said..