Board of Zoning Appeals approves variance requests for homeowners in flood zones

Pricillia and Mark Perko requested and received variances from the Board of Zoning Appeals. Photo by Kim Riley. Video by Mark Williams, Royal Examiner.

FRONT ROYAL — Pricillia Perko, who along with her husband Mark Perko owns waterfront property in a flood zone on the Shenandoah River, on Thursday night literally asked members of the Board of Zoning Appeals (BZA) to help save her life.

The couple appeared during the BZA’s first public hearing session regarding their variance requests for a steel pavilion that covers part of the carport at their Avalon Drive property in Shenandoah River Estates (SRE).

“Our carport, as silly as it may seem to others, actually serves as a lifeboat for me in the winter,” Pricillia Perko said in a statement read by her husband to the BZA during its October 3 meeting.

“When I have flare-ups, I can’t wait for an ambulance and can’t take a chance that it would not be able to get to me or not be able to get me out once it arrived if the roads were bad, as they have been many times.”

Pricillia Perko, a lung cancer and heart attack survivor, currently suffers resulting health conditions that have severely impacted her breathing. One of the ways that Mark Perko tried to help improve her quality of life and to proactively prepare for emergencies occurred in 2015 when he erected the pavilion, which serves two purposes: as a canopy that allows Pricillia to enjoy the outdoors without being baked by the sun, and for car shelter during inclement winter weather when she may need emergency transport to the local hospital.

The community’s roads are not maintained by either the County or State, making travel difficult for ambulances during winter weather, said Mark Perko.

“Ice and snow events are the types of situations that scare me,” according to Pricillia’s statement. “My husband keeps our truck emergency-ready with chains on it when ice is forecast.

Unfortunately, I do not have time to wait for him to clean off snow and ice or get a vehicle road ready. In those cases, I need to leave very quickly. This is when the carport becomes a lifeboat for me by keeping a vehicle emergency ready.”

The problem with the permanent structure, however, was that the pavilion didn’t meet certain Warren County zoning requirements, according to Matt Wendling, the County floodplain manager and planner II, who toured the Perkos’ property during a community assistance visit this spring with a representative from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

“This is how Mr. Perko’s pavilion was discovered,” Wendling wrote in his September 23 staff summary for the BZA. “Planning Staff requested Mr. Perko to apply for a building permit, which he did and was approved by the Building Inspections office to be flood proofed. However, zoning could not approve the permit because the pavilion does not meet the zoning ordinance setback requirements.”

Ultimately, Wendling told the Perko family that they needed to request a variance to Warren County Code Section 180-12(B)(4)(b) and 180-22(H)(1)&(3) to allow an accessory building to be located within the front yard at a front setback of 19 feet in lieu of the required 50-feet setback. They also needed to request a variance for another County code regarding the number of accessory structures on a property less than one acre in size located in the County’s special flood hazard area.

But Wendling also noted in his staff summary that the pavilion’s location “does seem to be the only location on the Perkos’ property where they could place the pavilion” because the parcel is a small lot (0.16 acres) where there’s also a house, shed, septic system and well.

The Perko family requested variances to County codes for their pavilion and shed. Photo from County file

Nevertheless, before requesting their variances, the Perkos experienced months of what Mark Perko called “high anxiety” as they jumped through bureaucratic hoops.

“I personally think that the citizens of the flood zone areas want to obtain permits and follow the due process,” Mark Perko told BZA members, “but our experiences have been that the current attitude of the County forbids that from happening when one has specific needs or wants to improve their home or property in these communities.”

That sentiment was echoed by several of his neighbors from Shenandoah River Estates who also attended the BZA meeting to support the Perkos’ request, voice their own concerns, and offer suggestions for improving zoning processes and codes.

Eva Challis, for instance, who is vice president of the SRE Civic Association, pointed out what the group considers a key discrepancy between residents and County planning and zoning officials: the variance issue regarding what constitutes a front yard.

Waterfront homeowners consider their front yards to be facing the Shenandoah River, while the County refers to a front yard as being on the side of the house facing the street.

“Our community was created as a waterfront community because the view should be the river, not the road,” Challis said. “To have a beautiful view of the river it wouldn’t make sense to want to put sheds, carports, a garage or whatever is allowed in front to obstruct your view. It would make sense in our specific community that the back of your house faces the road.”

SRE formerly was part of Happy Creek Farm and was developed in the flood zone in the 1950s when lot-size requirements didn’t exist. Most lots were purchased for a standard 50-feet wide with varying lengths, which subsequently have changed due to erosion caused by the Shenandoah River, Challis said.

“If it’s possible, it would be great if we could be considered as some sort of an exception,” suggested Challis, noting that if the residential zoning for SRE could be changed to agricultural, then SRE would be allowed more variances or exceptions.

“Just because we don’t fit the current subdivision definition, perhaps you could consider changing the code to help us to fit into perhaps some other categories,” she added.

Another resident supporting the Perko family variance request sent an October 3 letter to BZA Secretary Cindy Kodernak, Mark Perko, and Thomas Sayre, vice chairman of the Warren County Board of Supervisors, whose Shenandoah District includes SRE.

SRE “residents should not be limited by unrealistic stringent planning and zoning rules as our neighborhood is unique and was built this way,” wrote Sally Long, who lives on Harris Drive. “We need clear guidelines to follow that apply to our riverfront community and reflect the way it was originally established by the developer. We need special exemptions to the code.”

Sayre also attended the BZA meeting to support the Perkos’ request.

“I think it makes a statement that a County supervisor cares enough about the citizens under his authority to take his personal time to attend this meeting and hear his constituents’ concerns,” Mark Perko told the BZA.

Following the Perkos’ public hearing session, the BZA considered their variance requests, with BZA Vice Chair Lorraine Smelser motioning to accept an accessory building to be located “within the front yard at a front setback of 19 feet,” and to allow two accessory structures on the property “with the condition that the applicant meets all building and zoning permitting requirements.”

The motion was seconded by BZA member Robert Conway and unanimously approved by the Board — action that generated audience applause.

BZA members then held two more separate public hearing sessions for similar variance requests for setback increases, as well as increases to the number of accessory structures on properties less than one acre in size.

Gang Li (left) and Helen Xiaohui Wu (center) discuss their variance request with Warren County Floodplain Manager and Planner II Matt Wendling (right). Photo by Kim Riley

In each case, the Front Royal residents said they previously received incorrect information about whether they needed certain County-required documents to construct certain structures on their properties.

For instance, Helen Xiaohui Wu and Gang Li, who live on Old Dam Road on the Shenandoah River, had to request a variance to Warren County Code Section 180-12(B)(4)(b) and 180-22(H)(1)&(3) to allow a garage and deck to be located within the front yard with no front setback in lieu of the required 50-feet setback and a side setback of 6 feet in lieu of the required 10-feet setback.

Warren County planner Wendling reported that in March, when County planning staff and a FEMA floodplain manager made site visits to locations around Warren County, they “observed a garage, deck and storage shed” on the Xiaohui/Gang property as they drove through the subdivision.

“These structures appear to be placed there a number of years ago, but we have no records of it being permitted,” wrote Wendling in a June 21, 2019 letter to Xiaohui and Gang, adding that without the required permits, “the property would be in violation … and may make you subject to zoning enforcement actions.”

Xiaohui apologized to BZA members on Thursday for being “ignorant about how the building process works which is why I hired a contractor to take care of the necessary details. I now know that this contractor did not comply with the standard process for building projects.”

Similarly, Kent Wager in 2017 built a carport on his Valley Retreat Road property on the South Fork of the Shenandoah River that a formerly employed County building inspector told him didn’t require a permit. But then this year Wendling told him the structure did require a variance for the 19-feet front setback in lieu of the required 50-feet setback.

Each variance request for both applicants also sought to allow for the number of accessory structures on a lot of less than one acre in size to be increased to four in lieu of two.

The BZA approved both requested variances with the condition that each applicant meet all building and zoning permitting requirements.

And BZA Chairman David Feiring told Xiaohui to make sure that any future contractors she hires understand what’s required by the County before they conduct any work.

Watch the BZA meeting in this exclusive Royal Examiner video:

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