A county planner says Albemarle would not have approved the building where it is now, but there are no threats to water quality because construction is complete.
When Katharine DeGeorge and Jeremy Kent bought a house on 7.86 acres in May 2022, previous owner David A. Powell signed an affidavit stating he knew of no violations of county ordinance nor any issues related to securing permission to build on the property.
That turned out not to be true, and the couple is now suing Powell in Albemarle Circuit Court.
“Over a decade ago, the prior owner, a class A contractor, had, to our knowledge, not gotten permits or inspections for several buildings on the property,” said Nicole Scro, an attorney representing the couple. “He [also] hosted weddings as a business.”
After DeGeorge and Kent had their own wedding on the property in 2023, they held two others for friends and soon received a violation notice from the county after a neighbor complained. An inspection revealed that multiple structures had been built on the property without a permit, including a three-car garage with finished space.
The garage and its driveway were also built within 100 feet of a stream, which is prohibited by Albemarle’s water protection ordinance. That means it would have to be removed unless the Board of Supervisors granted a special exception.
“We want to preserve the structures while still achieving compliance,” Scro said. “It is not a small structure to move or to demolish.”
Just over a quarter acre of stream buffer is affected and the couple has offered to mitigate the issue by planting ornamental grasses on 11,688 square feet of land to offset the disturbed buffer area, as well as an additional 12,000 square feet of trees.
Kent said the couple has spent more than $100,000 on the plan and other steps to become compliant.
“We’re not business people and we’re not construction people, and we didn’t really know the law,” Kent said.
County planner Rebecca Ragsdale said staff would not have approved the building where it is, but there are no threats to water quality now that construction is complete.
“There are no unstabilized areas and the stream is in good health,” Ragsdale said.
Supervisor Ann Mallek was the lone vote against the special exception at the June 3 meeting, and said the couple should have done more due diligence before purchasing the property. She said Albemarle has previously required other buildings in the buffer to be moved.
“It is up to the county to have consistent application of its requirements in order to have fairness and respect for the rule of law in Albemarle County,” Mallek said. “People have called me and said, ‘Well, why should I be following the rules if other people don’t?’”
Other supervisors had more sympathy for the couple and noted that one of the conditions for the exception is that the finished space in the garage cannot be used for homestays.
“It’s really a sad situation because we have a couple that purchased this land, had an affidavit saying that everything had been permitted, then found out it wasn’t permitted,” said Supervisor Bea LaPisto-Kirtley.
Supervisor Mike Pruitt said it would cause more environmental damage to demolish or move the structure.
“It’s got to take several days, significant additional runoff, significant debris, CO2 and building materials, yada, yada, yada,” Pruitt said. “That is a real environmental harm.”
A hearing is scheduled in the civil suit for June 25 at 9:30am.
