A proposal for a private grass runway on a 29.2-acre parcel of land fronting on Route 14 and adjacent to a subdivision got the thumbs down from the Mathews County Planning Commission after a public hearing in the historic courthouse Tuesday night.
Planners voted 5-2 to recommend that the board of supervisors deny the application for a conditional use permit by developer Joe Perdue of Port Haywood on property adjacent to Fickle Fen Road that he recently purchased from Mark and Elaine Sopko of Foster. The board of supervisors is expected to hold its own public hearing on the matter during the April 17 meeting.
During the public hearing—the second such hearing held on the application in a two-month period because the applicant purchased the property in the interim—a lengthy statement of opposition was presented to the commission, with a number of residents using their allotted three minutes of speaking time to successively read portions of the statement.
Speakers questioned the safety of ...