Warren County Planning Commission forwards multiple land-use requests, adopts comprehensive plan update

Robert Myers was re-elected chairman and Hugh Henry vice chairman as the Warren County Planning Commission opened its Jan. 8 meeting, then moved into public hearings that produced a mix of unanimous recommendations, a tabled short-term rental request and the commission’s adoption of the county’s 2024 comprehensive-plan update.

The commission voted to forward a number of conditional use permit (CUP) requests to the Board of Supervisors with staff-recommended conditions, including: a short-term tourist rental for property owners who intend to manage rentals locally; a plan for a rural resort center at Ratana Vineyards; a church expansion at Mountaintop Church at Skyline; and a set of land‑use and permitting changes proposed by Little Boy Ventures to allow a social hall, a training facility and limited private camping on a former fire-station property on Rivermont Drive.

Why it matters: The decisions (and the comprehensive-plan vote) shape where new lodging, events venues, and light industrial or community uses can locate in Warren County, and set the conditions — occupancy caps, health- and fire-department approvals, lighting and septic/well testing — under which those uses can operate.

Key permit discussions and outcomes

Ratana Vineyards rural resort center — forward to supervisors with conditions Shelly Cook, owner of Ratana Vineyards, asked the commission to allow a commercial kitchen and a phased build-out of up to 20 cabins in association with her vineyard and tasting room. Staff told commissioners that county code generally limits farm wineries from operating a restaurant and that the county’s supplementary regulations for a rural resort center require a minimum acreage (30 acres) where restaurant service is proposed. Cook asked the commission not to require combining the vineyard’s existing rural-events CUP parcel with the tasting‑room parcel and asked that the commission permit the tasting-room parcel at 28 acres rather than the 30-acre supplemental standard. Planning staff and county counsel advised the commission they can make exceptions to the supplemental 30-acre minimum in specific…