Warren County supervisors approve ad for three zoning text amendments, seek July 1 alignment with state law

Warren County planning staff told the Board of Supervisors that three ordinance text amendments will be placed on the consent agenda and advertised for public hearing "on the 20 fourth of this month" with the intent to have the changes in place before July 1.

The amendments would: allow agricultural pursuits by right in commercial and industrial zoning districts (with confined feeding operations and abattoirs treated specially), revise the subdivision plat review process to implement recent state code changes that assign administrative approval authority to a designated agent, and remove the word "subdivisions" from certain zoning application requirements while clarifying an administrative waiver for simple applications.

Planning staff said the agricultural change "is to align the zoning ordinance with a taxation text amendment you guys did earlier this year" and described how existing confined feeding operations or abattoirs would remain allowed as lawful, established uses after rezoning while new such operations would generally require a conditional use permit. Asked to define an abattoir, planning staff answered, "Abattoir is, facility that's used for the slaughtering of animals, processing of animals." The staff also noted a previously adopted exempt poultry abattoir allowance for small farms (up to 1,000 birds a year) with acreage and setback requirements and that Blue Ridge Meats off Guard Hill Road operates as a nonconforming, grandfathered use.

On subdivision review, planning staff said the state has changed code provisions covering plat approvals and administrative review. "The bills you see that have been signed into law as of March effective July 1 removes planning commission and governing body, the Board of Supervisors, as the approval authority for the administrative review process for plats and plans and assigns such authority solely to a designated agent," staff said, adding that the local ordinance must be updated to avoid an "invalid subdivision ordinance" after the July 1 effective date. Staff explained that, under the county's prior practice, many subdivision approvals were ministerial: "If they check all of the legal boxes and meet all of the requirements, it would be unlawful for you to deny it. So it was already administrative decision. It was just made by you guys, which added time frame to the process." The staff presentation stressed the need to remove references to planning commission and board as reviewers and to eliminate the subdivision class system so that the administrator would handle uniform review.

The third amendment would remove the word "subdivisions" from the zoning application requirements list (since subdivision rules belong in the subdivision ordinance) and clarify a waiver provision allowing staff to waive certain application requirements for "simple" or "uncomplicated" uses, while preserving the board's ability to require studies such as environmental or community impact statements when appropriate.

Planning staff said the county attorney drafted the agricultural change and reviewed the ordinance "with a fine tooth comb" for the subdivision and application-rule fixes; staff urged the board to adopt the advertising and move the items to public hearing so the changes could be in place by the July 1 state deadline.

The items were placed on the consent agenda for advertisement and a public hearing; the board later approved the larger consent package.

The county did not at the meeting define every statutory cross‑reference and staff said they would present the ordinance text and public hearing materials for the advertised hearing. Questions about the new state definition of "designated agent" and the detailed language of the administrative waiver were raised during the presentation; planning staff said they were using the state code definition and that the county's planning director or their designee would serve as the administrator under the proposed text.