County staff drafting ordinance changes after BZA ruling; board has directed nonenforcement for now

County staff told the Augusta County Board of Supervisors they are working on ordinance language to address the status of a Bunny Loo rescue property after the Board of Zoning Appeals (BZA) ruled against the rescue group's appeal.

Staff and the county attorney’s office said they have prepared multiple draft approaches and are evaluating policy trade-offs because any single change could affect other provisions of the zoning ordinance. "We have parameters … we have some working drafts, but it's not a matter of a quick paragraph or something like that to draft, but there are multiple ways to go about allowing this kind of thing," a county attorney participant said.

The board was told the county has effectively directed staff not to enforce the zoning ordinance against the specific property owner at this time, giving staff additional time to prepare options. "We're not sitting on it, we're not putting it aside, we haven't forgotten about it, but that should make it for her purposes at this point less of a dire situation because the county's not enforcing that against her until the county determines how they want to proceed with an ordinance," staff said.

Staff emphasized the legal and policy choices remaining, and said they would return to the board with options and policy questions requiring board direction. A circuit court case related to the property (the Johnson matter) has been filed; staff said a trial date has not been set because the property owner has not yet filed an answer and the court timeline has not elapsed.

The board requested staff continue drafting ordinance language, identify policy trade-offs, and present options for the board’s policy decisions at a future meeting.