Business

Vienna City Council OKs rezoning request

Jackson Pool to remain closed throughout summer

VIENNA -- Vienna City Council voted 6-1 to rezone the property located 5708 Grand Central Ave. from residential to commercial at Thursday's meeting.

Council members Tom Azinger, Roger Bibbee, Jim Leach and Christopher Mancuso, Council Recorder Melissa Elam and Mayor Randy Rapp voted for the measure. Council member Kim Williams voted against it. This was the second reading of the ordinance.

One opposed to the ordinance referred to the City of Vienna's Comprehensive Plan. According to Vienna resident Tami Rhodes, the document lays out the city's demographics, median income and designated areas.

"(It says) land uses have to be compatible with one another. Local businesses should be working with the local roundtable to recruit new businesses to the town center. Commercial areas are located along Grand Central from 23rd south to city boundaries provide for commercial space in well located areas," she said.

She continued, "Commercial usage should be adequately buffered from residential areas. Living areas should not contain uses that are incompatible."

"The state law requires that we have a comprehensive plan. The state law also requires that any zoning amendments be consistent with that comprehensive plan," Williams said. "Everybody has an opinion about what the comprehensive plan is."

Property owner Mark Schall also spoke at the meeting, noting the support he and his wife have received.

"On behalf of my wife and myself, we'd like to thank everybody for hearing our request and considering this zoning amendment," he said. "After the last meeting, we had an outpouring of support about our plans for this property."

Schall and his wife have been running a women's clothing ministry out of the property for almost a year. He noted that when meeting with the Planning Commission last summer, they referred to the comprehensive plan extensively. He provided a copy of their application to the council.

"I think it's an interpretive issue that we're running into, based on whatever agenda you're pushing," he said. "That being said, we've walked through this process every step of the way."

The first reading of the ordinance took place at council's previous meeting on April 27. A separate public hearing also took place.

"The law requires a public hearing so they can comment on the issue at hand," City Attorney Russell Skogstad Jr. said.

"In our previous meetings, we reviewed the facts, had a public hearing and decided that going commercial was the best use of this property," Rapp said.

Additionally, council voted to participate in both the Parkersburg/Wood County Home Consortium for the 2023-2024 Fiscal Year, beginning July 1, and the Community Development Block Grant for the 2023-2024 year.

Elam provided an update to the status of the Jackson Pool. She said it will be closed this summer, due to a pending remodel and issues being uncovered.

"Unfortunately, Jackson Pool will not be open this summer," she said. "We considered just filling it up and fix a few things. We uncovered in the inspection process more issues than we knew initially when we voted to close the pool down and not open last summer. We did not feel like it was manageable to correct all of those things in order to safely open the pool this summer."

"Mayor (Tom) Joyce from the City of Parkersburg reached out and they are going to increase the hours and availability of the City Park Pool so they can accommodate more people," Rapp added.

Council also approved a measure to participate in a Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act distributed by the state of West Virginia that will repair or replace bridges on Ninth Street, 12th Street, 17th Street, 27th Street, and 28th Street.

"There is no cost to the city of Vienna to participate in this project," Rapp said. "All we have to do is maintain traffic flow. Which, we will be glad to do that."

Kristen Hainkel can be reached at khainkel@newsandsentinel.com