5/7/2016

The Marshall Code:

Process of Creating the Draft &

Public Review of the Draft

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It is important to know that the contents of the initial draft Code were guided by a
significant public process, and that a significant public process was always planned
and is underway to review that draft and receive input from the entire Marshall
community. The County has worked hard to create an inclusive process that assures
participation and input from all stakeholders.
The idea that staff, and a steering committee, came up with the draft code in secret,
with no input from the broader community is simply false. The decisions about what
the Code should say or include were fundamentally guided by the Marshall Service
District Plan adopted by the Board of Supervisors in 2011. An Ordinance of this
nature would never have been proposed had there not already been a detailed vision
developed by the people of Marshall for the community of Marshall. The Marshall
Service District Plan described in detail the types of uses and form of development
that the Community desired to see throughout Marshall. This vision was based on
a process that kicked off in December 2007 with a public meeting at the Community
Center to introduce the process and with a press release about a series of public
meetings to be held in Marshall to work on the plan.
The record shows that more
than 20 meetings were held in Marshall with the community to work on the plan at
Tri-County feeds, all advertised and open to the general public. These meetings were
followed by additional public hearings at the Planning Commission and the Board of
Supervisors, culminating in the adoption of the Marshall Service District Plan in 2011.
This work is the basis for the initial draft. Staff took the vision and policies expressed
in all of this community work and translated them into specific zoning provisions. An
informal Steering Committee did participate in the drafting process by providing
feedback and guidance on staffs reading of the plan. Neither staff nor this Steering
Committee sought to independently decide what the Code would say. Rather, we did
our best to try and get the Code to accurately reflect what the broader Community
had already said. At the end of 2015, as staff neared completion of the draft, staff
and the steering committee began to reach out and let the community start to know
that we were about to begin the public process of reviewing the Code. We were a
seeking opportunities to test the code on specific properties where owners might
have future plans to make sure that it was working as expected. Dozens of Marshall
owners were contacted in this initial outreach, but certainly not everyone.
This
process culminated in March 2016 with the initial draft of the Marshall Code, ready
for the public review process.
Our first public meetings were held in March; the first as a presentation at the
Marshall Business & Residents Association (MBRA) to introduce the Code, and the
second as an open house where we could get out as much detailed information to as
many property owners as possible. We assembled a mailing list so that we could

send letters to every affected property owner to let them know what was happening,
and we have a website to disseminate information. An email list was established
based on the first MBRA meeting and other contacts, and copies of the entire Code
were emailed to the email list, made available on the web site and, later, at the
suggestion of a resident, provided at the Marshall library. Since the second meeting
at the end of March, staff has been holding office hours in Marshall, at the Marshall
Enterprise Center, from 4-8pm on Mondays, to provide better opportunities for folks
to get information and provide comments at a convenient location and after-hours.
While those scheduled office hours are now over, staff remains available to meet with
anyone to discuss the Code, answer questions, receive comments, and test scenarios.
Because the MBRA meeting provided only a higher-level overview and the Open
House allowed only for one-on-one questions and answers, staff is now planning a
series of meetings to review, in more detail, specific elements of the Code. We are
planning five meetings starting in May to present the details of each of the five newly
proposed zoning districts, one meeting for each district. Letters will be sent out in
advance of these meetings to the property owners in each district, and information
on the meetings will be disseminated on the web site and via email.
We are then
tentatively planning for one or more meetings to discuss the historic component.
Once we get through this set of specific meetings, the intent is to revise the Code
based on all of the comments we have received.
The revised Code will then be
distributed to all, and additional meetings will be scheduled at that time to review
and discuss the revised draft.
The County remains committed to a public process that is extensive and inclusive.
There is no plan to rush the Code to consideration before the Planning Commission
and Board. We are eager to hear more feedback on the Code from everyone affected
by the Code; we understand that without this input, the Code cannot be what it needs
to be for the Community.
Get on the Marshall Code email list by emailing:

kim.johnson@fauquiercounty.gov

Get more information on the Marshall Code webpage:

http://www.fauquiercounty.gov/government/departments-a-g/community-development/marshall-code