Back to the drawing board on Cool Harbor ROW infringement ‘vacation’

Dating to the late 1950s, the Cool Harbor Motel has long been a landmark in Front Royal’s north-side commercial district. The encroaching portion juts out toward 15th Street to the right. Photos/Roger Bianchini

The Front Royal Town Council will have to revisit its 3-2 approval of the permanent “vacation” of a 675-square foot Right of Way encroachment on 15^th Street to the Cool Harbor Motel.  That split vote, with new Councilman Chris Morrison abstaining, came at the Monday, February 13 meeting.  Eugene Tewalt and William Sealock opposed the permanent relinquishing of the built-upon ROW encroachment that appears to date back over half a century to original motel owner Homer LeHew. 

Town Attorney Doug Napier told us he has interpreted a section of the Virginia Constitution as requiring that, not only a public right of way sale, but also a vacating of municipal property as requiring a “supermajority” or three-quarters vote.  Not wanting to have to cut any member in half, on the Town’s six-person Council that three-quarters majority is rounded up from 4.5 to 5 of the six council members.

The applicable section of the Constitution is 9 – Sale of property and granting of franchises by cities and towns – which reads:

No rights of a city or town in and to its waterfront, wharf property, public landings, wharves, docks, streets, avenues, parks, bridges, or other public places, or its gas, water, or electric works shall be sold except by an ordinance or resolution passed by a recorded affirmative vote of three fourths of all members elected to the governing body.

At a January 3 work session, Cool Harbor owner (as of February 2016) Mahesh “Mark” Patel and partner Ashika Deshpande requested the property be legally transferred to them to facilitate a 20-year Small Business Administration loan to make necessary improvements to acquire a Motel 6 franchise.

The encroaching portion of the Cool Harbor Motel is estimated to date back at least a half century. It has been noted 15th Street is one of, if not the widest town street – certainly its widest secondary street.

 Since, Council has heatedly debated the advisability of sale, vacating the property, or granting a long-term lease on the 375-foot strip of ROW upon which the Town allowed the addition to be constructed.  Town staff estimates the encroachment to date back as many as 67 years.  The Town has since granted a ROW exception to subsequent owners at a small monthly fee.

The issue of ownership or long-term possession came up due to the requirements of Patel’s SBA loan. He has estimated a $31,000 expense to tear down the addition that intrudes an estimated six to seven feet onto the Town ROW.  Patel and Deshpande have told Council they are under time pressure with the Motel 6 franchise deal.

No information was immediately available on rescheduling a vote. But whenever the debate is re-engaged, the 5-vote approval requirement is sure to play into a perhaps different outcome, second time around.  For while no one seemed opposed to facilitating the new owners loan and franchising initiative, Tewalt and Sealock seemed pretty adamant that either a leasing option that retains long-term ownership or reverts the property to the Town at some perhaps distant future time was preferable.

“Land doesn’t grow,” Tewalt told his colleagues at the January 3 work session, predicting, “Someday that’s going to be one of the biggest commercial areas of the Town.”

However, the sub-majority of Connolly, Meza and Egger preferred to focus on the here and now and the Town’s culpability in allowing the encroachment in the first place – “I favor helping a business that’s already there,” Egger told her colleagues during earlier discussion.

Prior to the February 13 vote, Sealock sought a compromise that while giving up the land now, would return it to the Town if the motel were ever torn down as the north-side commercial landscape changed in a perhaps distant future.

This observer’s money is on such a compromise now being necessary to achieve a 5-vote majority.