A group of residents in the Vance and Cedar street area have appealed the issuance of a building permit to construct a vehicle shelter to house school activity busses at the former Medlin school site.
Medlin school, which is located at 237 Vance Street, is now the headquarters for the Roanoke Rapids Graded School District's maintenance services division, which has been renovating the building, Interim Superintendent John Parker said Tuesday.
The application for appeal, according to a memo sent to the five members of the city's regional board of adjustment by Planning and Development Director Kelly Lasky, alleges Lasky improperly or erroneously interpreted the ordinance authorizing a school maintenance facility in a residential zoning district.
(The board of adjustment will hold a public hearing on the matter Thursday, February 18, at 6 p.m. in the Lloyd Andrews City Meeting Hall located at 700 Jackson Street)
The appeal of that decision brought about a stop work order on the project, which was issued last week.
Residents who signed the appeal are requesting the permit for the garage be revoked “in the effort to maintain a comfortable, healthy, safe and pleasant environment in which to live, sheltered from incompatible and disruptive activities that belong in non-residential districts,” and “that the facility be held to the standards that would be applied to other structures within the residential zone.”
In the appeal residents in the area state in a full document, which was forwarded to the school system and city council, “Since the building located at 237 Vance Street … has been designated as the Roanoke Rapids Graded School District Maintenance Services, changes have taken place that are not compatible with a residential neighborhood.”
In the document the residents state the major change has been a large barbed-wire fence surrounding a portion of the grounds as well as the 60-by-120-feet bus shelter which was permitted by the city and under construction until the stop work order was issued. “The shelter is also planned to be tall enough to hold multiple busses within. Neither the fences nor the shelter are compatible with a district zoned as a residential neighborhood. They take away from the comfortable … pleasant environment in which to live, sheltered from incompatible activities in the residential neighborhood.”
The residents contend the shelter and fencing and activities planned for the structure are suited for industrial districts.
Residents say they understand the “difficult responsibility of interpreting the land use ordinance and determining which activities are suitable for which districts within the city,” Lasky has.
They believe, however, since Medlin has been dormant it is no longer a school per legal terms and shouldn't be treated as such. “Nor should it be afforded the permissible leeway that a school receives in a residential neighborhood. The activities and structures planned for the facility … lean more toward those alluded to under … the land use ordinance which defines an industrial district.”
In the document file, Lasky writes to the board of adjustment, the city's land use ordinance contains no definitions of schools or educational properties. “In its absence, the following definition was utilized from North Carolina General Statutes.”
General statutes define educational property as any school building or bus, school campus, grounds, recreational area, athletic field or other property owned, used or operated by any board of education or school board of trustees or directors for the administration of any school.
Lasky notes in the documents, “After consideration and review of the city's land use ordinance, it was determined by planning and development staff that the city cannot, under its zoning ordinances, prevent a school district from improving facilities authorized as a school function under the education land use code, but the city can enforce compliance with the local development codes and North Carolina State Building Codes. It is the duty of the board of adjustment to determine if the land use administrator made the correct decision for issuance of the … vehicle shelter under the city's land use code for educational land uses in a residential zoning district.”
Parker said the school board last February decided to renovate Medlin school, which has been vacant for nearly 20 years since Belmont opened.
Since that time there have been several offers to buy the property, none of which the board acted upon. “The board was trying to make some use of it,” he said.
Parker said maintenance services will be the headquarters for the division and will be used strictly for storage of equipment and parking activity busses. There will be no mechanical work done on the grounds. “It's going to be nice inside. It's not going to be a place where we're doing any kind of service work.”
The interim superintendent said he looks forward to board of adjustment meeting. “It gives us an opportunity to make the public aware we intend to be good neighbors.”
