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Residents urge enforcement as VMFA foundation seeks parcel use change in Museum District
Summary
A neighborhood representative told Richmond City Council that the VMFA foundation’s plan to build a warehouse on residential land contradicts long-standing ordinances that reserved the parcel for parking and landscaping, and asked the city to enforce prior restrictions and provide public review.
Thomas Courtney, speaking during public comment as a neighborhood representative, asked Richmond City Council to review and enforce earlier ordinances that, he said, limited a parcel in the Museum District to parking and landscaping for the benefit of a commercial corner property.
Courtney said the parcel had been governed by a 1976 and 1987 ordinance that restricted its use to parking and landscaping improvements intended to serve a commercial property at the corner (now a school). He said the VMFA foundation’s recent acquisitions of residential parcels on Grove Avenue and plans for a warehouse on residential land undermine those prior land-use commitments and were not properly publicly noticed.
“We stand before you as neighborhood representatives concerned about the construction of an industrial warehouse on residential land in the Museum District,” Courtney said. He told council the foundation had quietly acquired four residential parcels, including a bed-and-breakfast property, and that those acquisitions and the proposed warehouse serve “financial and legal interests other than the public educational purposes of the VMFA.”
Courtney urged the zoning and planning department to review the project and enforce existing ordinances; he framed the request as a question of accountability to earlier public commitments and community character. The remarks were submitted during the meeting’s public comment period; no staff response or council action appears in the transcript on the night’s agenda regarding a formal enforcement motion.
Clarifying details: Courtney cited prior ordinances from 1976 and 1987 as the legal basis restricting the parcel’s use; he asserted the foundation acquired four nearby residential parcels and that the city receives no property taxes from those parcels because of nonprofit status. The transcript does not contain copies of the ordinances, maps, purchase records, or a planning staff response to the specific parcel-level claims.
