News

Newfies win after 'pain in the butt' zoning hearing (2)

By Bill Moss, Published: February 27, 2024

Andrew Riddle spoke for all in the room — a room filled to capacity with supporters and opponents of an animal-assisted therapy enterprise on forested land in southern Henderson County — when he articulated his frustration with the case at hand.

“This is the problem with growth and the archaic zoning laws that we have at times,” Riddle, a commercial real estate broker who was recently installed as chair of the Zoning Board of Adjustment, said toward the end of a grueling and emotional hearing Friday night. “Special use permit: It’s a special pain in the butt.”

Two sides of the conflict delivered longer closing arguments but none captured the aggravating nature of these cases as well as Mr. Riddle’s.

As in the past — in requests to allow storage units in Crab Creek, a drug rehab center on Fork Creek Road, a shooting range in Big Hungry and other inherently incompatible intrusions on rural residential land — excruciatingly drawn-out and emotional hearings over multiple nights eventually yielded a ragged decision. In this case, at 9:20 p.m. Friday, the county Zoning Board of Adjustment staggered across the finish line when it voted unanimously to permit a Newfoundland-assisted therapy center for teachers, nurses, cops, firefighters and other traumatized professionals. The approval came with strings attached, another feature of this unmanageable beast in the county zoning code.

The quasi-judicial hearing, like others before it, featured a familiar cast of characters. There were homeowners who excavated far corners of the worldwide web to paint a dark picture of noise, light, odors, traffic and human misery that the proposed use would purportedly cause. There was applicants’ attorney Brian Gulden, the hired gun with the self-amplified voice, tommy-gun interjection that “we would object” and the welcome pronouncement at long last — after lawyerly interrogations on direct, cross, redirect and recross — that “Those would be all our questions.”

WesleyEven Wesley, a recently rescued Newfoundland who napped on the thin-pile institutional carpet, could not abide. He was mercifully liberated from the 5½-hour marathon at halftime. The somber face of the gentle giants may be Wesley’s default visage but the ZBA proceedings would give any Newfie ample reason to sigh in despair. In fact, speaking of sad faces, our nominees to be the first clients of the therapy center for people who have suffered emotional and mental exhaustion from an external life event not of their own making would be all the unfortunate souls forced to endure more than 10 hours of the zoning trial — the spectators in favor of and against the center.

* * *

The combatants in SUP-23-05 were the applicant, TimberKnolls Spirit Cove Inc., and the opponents — across-Evans Road homeowners Pat and John Newcomer and next-door neighbor Mike Gregory.

Spirit Cove sought permission to build a 4,032-square-foot therapy center on 4.76 acres of a 16-acre tract it bought from Kanuga Conference Center for $230,000 on Dec. 29. Homes for staffers, a barn and a horse pasture would go on the balance of the land. Since it was founded in 2018, Spirit Cove has helped more than 107,000 individuals in 21 states nationwide, the organization says.

The hearing got off to a tense start when the opponents presented two affidavits they said called into question the neutrality of ZBA member Steve Dozier. Bruce Hatfield, a Spirit Cove opponent who lives off Evans Road, said that Dozier had told him during the previous hearing that he, Hatfield, would “not like the outcome tonight.”
Not accurate, Dozier retorted.

“My actual statement was you may or may not like me because we have not heard the evidence tonight,” he said, “and that was the only thing I said.”

Newcomer, a retired attorney from Tampa who moved with Pat to Big Willow 20 years ago, pounced at the opening.

“I’ve tried cases for 40 years and statements like Mr. Dozier’s would be a cause for recusal by a judge,” he said. “When I looked at the board and I look at the quasi-judicial nature, this is in fact a jury, and the beauty of the jury system is that it has to be untainted and impartial. And for that reason, in order to avoid any appearance of impropriety, we would move that Mr. Dozier be recused from this matter.”

Hatfield’s affidavit and a similar one by Mike Gregory were dubious, Gulden responded.

“When you say ‘words to the effect of’ and ‘he knew me but I had to introduce myself to him,’ I think both of these affidavits are suspect,” Gulden said. “I think Mr. Dozier has the utmost character and respect for this board and I would ask the court to deny that motion.”

To be on the safe side, the zoning board voted to recuse Dozier.

* * *

To open the opposition, Pat recounted the alleged theft of anti-rezoning signs by the applicants and the counter-charges by Spirit Cove administrators that Pat and others had trespassed on their property.

“We would object to the ongoing reference to stealing signs, going on the Kanuga property, everyone calling the cops — that has absolutely nothing to do with the use,” Gulden said.

The board agreed with Gulden that the fussing was irrelevant to the core question.

“I do want to say that we are in a rural area,” Pat testified. “We’re surrounded by over 2,000 acres of forest. It takes the sheriff’s office over half an hour to get out to our area. If there is a problem there is not immediate help available.”

The Newcomers and Gregory tried repeatedly to play up what they described as a sense of fear the Evans Road neighbors would harbor over the possibility that a traumatized veteran-teacher-firefighter might go off on a violent rampage.

“I can tell you that I don’t want to live with my heart in my throat all the time,” Pat said.

Spirit Cove’s president and cofounder, Lisa Schiller, said the nonprofit’s screening process would filter out anyone with volatile tendencies.

“Anyone at immediate risk to themselves or others would not be accepted in our program,” she said.

In his closing, Newcomer said Evans Road neighbors assumed the county zoning code would protect them from commercial encroachment.

“We know that where we live that we don’t ask for much from the county,” he said. “We know when the power goes out we’re the last ones to get it back. We know when it snows we’re the last ones to get our street plowed. But the only thing we ask is to be protected by zoning. We live in this very rural, idyllic area on purpose. It sort of boggles our mind that there are so many places that are already zoned for what they want to do. So why would the zoning allow them to plunk it down in the middle of our neighborhood?”

* * *

Gregory, a major in the U.S. Air Force Reserves and a risk management specialist in the health care industry, said construction activity, traffic in and out of the center and headlights and chatter from the parking lot would destroy the serenity he sought when he bought his rural property.

“I have no malice, nothing, towards them prospering and doing what they want to do and being part of this community,” he said. “But right next door devalues my entire property, devalues the whole reason why I bought this property and it devalues the neighborhood as a whole.”

In its motion authorizing the special use permit, the zoning board added conditions requiring Spirit Cove to build a buffer between its driveway and Gregory’s home, erect a fence “that keeps children from coming into the driveway,” shield parking lot lighting, limit hours to 8 a.m.-5 p.m. (with no more than six events a year going as late as 10 p.m.), move its driveway farther south on Evans Road and limit a monument sign to no larger than 16 square feet.

ZBA member Mark Casoria noted that neighboring homeowners could have confronted a much more intense intrusion than a therapy center featuring big furry dogs.

“It sounds like this is an extension of Kanuga Conference Center’s ministry,” he said. “They sought you out, cut you a deal on the property and they have right of first refusal if something happens. The bottom line is, by right, if Kanuga decides just to outright sell that, on that four acres you could have eight houses with as many as 20 people and who knows how many cars — and so I would count my blessings.”