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Fauquier to consider wineries
He called last week's public hearing on proposed changes to the county winery ordinance a "listening experience."
Over many months, Fauquier Supervisor Peter Schwartz periodically has worked with winery owners and residents to craft regulations that would balance the interests of all parties.
Like counties throughout Virginia, Fauquier must develop an ordinance that complies with the new state law governing wineries.
The Marshall District supervisor believes the amendments must provide Fauquier wineries the "flexibility" they need to function under state law in ways that "don't adversely impact" winery neighbors and the countryside.
"I don't see the board taking any action ... any time soon," Schwartz said.
In August, the Fauquier Planning Commission unanimously recommended ordinance changes to regulate wineries.
Supervisor Holder Trumbo also viewed the Nov. 12 hearing as a chance "to take stock of where we are" on possible regulations of Fauquier's winery industry.
"We want to encourage agriculture," the board chairman said. "We want to encourage those activities which are truly consistent with what's going on in our countryside."
He believes the changing and increasingly unfavorable economic circumstances threaten the existence of traditional farming.
To survive, "agriculture has to reinvent itself," Trumbo said.
Wineries play a key role in sustaining Fauquier's agricultural base, he said.
But he believes the county must guard against the establishment of wineries as a premise for opening "a restaurant or a bar in a rural area."
Whatever changes to the winery ordinance the board adopts, Trumbo believes they should protect "quiet areas" and "open spaces" that rural residents already enjoy.
Under the state law approved by the Virginia General Assembly in 2007 and amended in 2008, local governments cannot regulate wine tastings during "regular business hours."
The planning commission recommendation sets regular business hours for wine tastings at 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Trumbo doesn't regard that limitation as overly restrictive.
"It's hard to say we've ever had significant commercial activity in our rural areas after six o'clock at night," he said.
Fauquier County Zoning Administrator Kimberley Johnson said the state law makes it difficult on local governments because it fails to "define regular business hours."
Noise issues also have preoccupied wineries and their neighbors during the debate about changes to the ordinance.
The commission proposes that no "outdoor amplified music" be allowed.
But some wineries believe music at their events, outdoors and amplified or not, should be allowed if it complies with the county noise ordinance and cannot be heard from the nearest property line.
The new state law also entitles wineries to certain by-right activities, allowing limited local government regulation.
"You cannot regulate events unless there are substantial impacts," Johnson said.
The planning commission's proposed changes attempt to categorize events tied to their kind, frequency, size and time of day.
Wineries can hold events that result in no "substantial impacts" by right, Johnson said.
That differs significantly from Fauquier's existing system, she said.
"There's no doubt we have to allow some events by right," Johnson said."We don't in our current regulation."
In November 2007, county staff began to study ways to amend the Fauquier ordinance so that it would conform with the new state law.
The review process during the last two years involved "much more collaboration" among staff, wineries and winery neighbors than in years past, Johnson said.
"It seems we're in a much better place than we have been historically," the zoning administrator said. "I'm not saying everybody's happy with" the proposed changes, "but there's been good discussion."
Neighbors and wineries have quarreled, sometimes fiercely, over how the effects of winery events on rural communities should be fairly mitigated.
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