Editor, The Herald:

Cumberland Residents: We are proposing to rewrite how you can split land – please read!

The Cumberland Planning Commission is beginning to wrap up its public input gathering portion regarding our major overhaul of the county's subdivision ordinance. The draft ordinance, which has been available for public review since the end of July, has been distributed to many land planning professionals like surveyors and engineers as well as to state agencies like VDOT and the Health Department and members of the public. The Planning Commission Chairman, Parker Wheeler and Planning Director Andy Sorrell have been on the “Call FLO” radio show to speak about the update. On August 30th the Commission hosted a public information meeting for citizens to learn more about the subdivision update. Unfortunately not one citizen was in attendance.

It is hoped that the draft under review today will become a model for other rural Virginia localities. While Cumberland understands it has had issues with how land development has been permitted in the past, this time we will get it right. However, no matter how beneficial the Commission believes this ordinance to be, without your input, we do not know what we may be leaving out or what we may need to change.

I implore the citizens of Cumberland County to contact the County Planning Department and get a copy of the draft subdivision ordinance and the brochure that summarizes it. You do not need to read the whole ordinance to understand what it is about. Even if you do not have any comments on the draft, please let our staff know.

To make sure the subdivision ordinance doesn't conflict with the zoning ordinance, as part of the update to the subdivision ordinance, the Commission is going to propose revising certain portions of the zoning ordinance. These portions relate to the lot standards (such as minimum lot size, width and road frontage), building setbacks and height restrictions for the county zoning districts which for the most part have not been updated since 1990 or before. As we begin this process at our regular meeting on October 18, 2010 at 7:00 p.m., in room C-8 of the Cumberland County Community Center, please make every effort to attend and let us know what you think!

<!– 1upcrlf2 –>Bill Burger

Vice-Chairman, Cumberland County Planning Commission Cumberland