Twenty-five Citizen’s Institute graduates were awarded certificates of completion at Blacksburg’s town council meeting Tuesday night.
The10-week course teaches citizens about town departments, town staff, programs and services setting the tone for the variety of assortment of topics a governing body encounters in its normal workings.
The council placed a number of ordinances on first reading for July 10, including one to clarify the town code regarding hunting, evaluating the relocation of a communications tower to Grayland Street, allowing office space on the ground floor of Kent Square, and an ordinance to amend the town code governing the storage of inoperable vehicles.
Town Attorney, Larry Spencer, who presented the staff report, said it had become evident that the current the town code (section 14-107) should be edited to be more readable and revisited to define how it should be enforced and administered.
The ordinance defines inoperable car. The ordinance doesn’t apply to cars in a garage or storage building, but does apply to inoperable vehicles visible in driveways and yards.
It can be shielded by a fence, but not a tarp and residents can only have one inoperable vehicle on the property.
Under the current ordinance, a violation is a minor criminal offense, but the revision would change it to a civil penalty (fine) instead of having to go to court.
Spencer suggested delaying taking action for 60 days to allow people to find out about the changes, to weigh in on them and to be able to comply.
He said he had spoken to citizens in the audience that night who would be affected by the ordinance who want input on the changes. And weigh in they did.
In public comment, one citizen on Hightop Road who works on race cars has ten tagged trailers, four enclosed trailers with race cars in them and piles of scrap metal.
He’s trying to get rid of them, he said, although since 1991, when he had 50 cars, he had been grandfathered in to ordinance changes getting rid of 26 of the 50 cars.
He registered his frustration with vagaries of the rules, keeping a baseball bat in clear view of code inspectors coming on his property.
“Well, let’s don’t do that,” Mayor Leslie Hager-Smith said. “We’ll figure it out together. This ordinance will benefit from further discussion.”
Mr. Gelly, a resident on Kentwood Drive who restores vintage Volvos, was surprised by the town’s sudden interest in the topic.
“I’ve had cars out there for 30 years. I have never once received a complaint,” he said. “One cop about twenty years ago. That was it. What is the big deal suddenly? What, are they eye-sores suddenly?”
Hager-Smith said the town does, in fact, receive complaints and invited Gelly to continue the dialogue with the town attorney.
One citizen who was reluctant to give his name and address demonstrated why inoperable vehicles are undesirable in a worst-case scenario.
Twice, disabled vehicles have rolled down a neighbor’s driveway, damaging his house.
The speaker said it’s not only dangerous, but unsightly.
“My feeling in this, the property I own, I’ve been there for 50 years. I’ve been trying to fix my property up. Make it a nice place and a nicer place for me to live and twice having cars back into my house….I’m not trying to create problems, but part of this is a safety issue and part is an issue, if your neighbors are trying to keep their property up, but there are a number of cars …it doesn’t help with property values.”
Sharing initial thoughts for the council to consider, Councilman John Bush, who lives on Wharton Street, recounted cars parked on the street distinguishing between public street and private property.
“In my view, I see a distinct difference between what happens on a public street and public parking and on somebody’s private property, their yard,” he said. “I hesitate to extend punitive damages to what people do on their property unless there’s really overwhelming reason to do so.”
Bush also noted that perhaps there should be different rules for front and back yards.
Susan Anderson let it be known that several citizens had approached her to say they were unhappy with vehicles that are accumulating on neighbors’ properties.
“I don’t know what the solution is, but I think that both sets of people have a valid issue,” she said.
The council voted unanimously to delay action for 60 days until the Aug. 14 meeting.
