Northampton sends mitigation bank proposal to Planning Commission

The Northampton Board of Supervisors sent a proposal from staff on wetlands banks to the Planning Commission at Tuesday night’s regularly scheduled Board meeting.

Zoning Administrator Susan McGhee informed the Board that County Administrator Charlie Kolakowski, County Attorney Bev Leatherbury and she had met with the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality and the Army Corps of Engineers who advised them they had the tools to regulate or outright ban the use in the County.

Aimed at addressing concerns with the County becoming a mitigation bank repository, the proposal will change the 2016 Zoning Ordinance to only allow off site compensatory non tidal wetlands projects in Conservation and Agricultural Rural Business zones. It would ban such projects in all other zoning designations.

In addition, the Zoning Department is recommending the removal of wildlife impoundment pond use from agricultural use tables, due to advise from the local Agricultural Extension Agent, McGhee said.

During her presentation, McGhee referenced the Virginia Hydraulic Unit Explorer from the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation, which maps various drainage basins within the Commonwealth. Any development projects within the seaside of Accomack, Northampton and a small portion of Virginia Beach could be mitigated on the seaside. The eye brow raising information staff learned came on the bayside, where any development that disturbed wetlands in Accomack and Northampton County, as well as any adjacent areas on the western shore, which include places such as Virginia Beach, Norfolk, Hampton, the Middle Peninsula and the Northern Neck, a Northampton County site on the bayside could be used for a mitigation project.

Under questioning from Supervisor John Coker, McGhee clarified under this proposal you could still engage in one of these projects on your land, but not to mitigate off site development projects.

Supervisor Coker made a motion to send the proposal to the Planning Commission with the stipulation that any such project within the allowed zones be subject to a major special use permit. The motion was passed unanimously.