Two years after the estate of the late Helen and Murray Main donated the couple’s 220-acre property in Mathews to the national nonprofit organization Canine Companions for Independence, Inc., the organization’s vision for the property is finally moving toward realization.
Canine Companions, headquartered in Santa Rosa, California, has filed a request for two conditional use permits, one for a country club use and one for an event venue, on the property. The applications will be considered at a joint public hearing of the Mathews County Board of Supervisors and Mathews County Planning Commission, to be held at 7 p.m. Tuesday in the historic courthouse on Court Street.
According to the applications, the organization seeks to establish the two uses on a three-parcel waterfront portion of the property containing 68.81 acres. The area surrounding the site is zoned Rural and Residential-1 and contains vacant wooded lots and single-family homes.
For the country club use (a use which, as expla...