Stuck On Stupid: Vienna Commercial Review Board

'Umpa Lumpas' Can Be Garish and Bizarre Too!

The June 2006 Town of Vienna newsletter offers a questionnaire for those citizens looking to sit on various Town boards and commissions. We were struck by the description of the Town Board of Architectural Review:

"Examines and approves plans for commercial buildings, signs and landscaping to ensure that new construction is not bizarre or garish and is harmonious and compatible with existing buildings."

Keep that piece of legal prose in mind the next time you look at commercial buildings in Vienna. Try not to laugh when you consider that there actually is an aesthetic review board approving those lovely brown and yellow signs throughout Vienna! To the larger point...

How many of you are attorneys out there? Anyone see a problem with that piece of code? Ladies and gentleman, the words garish and bizarre can mean ANYTHING to ANYONE. This is the exact same type of nonsensical legal language the Town is defending in lawsuits over the historic district.

Imagine going before the Town's commercial review board and being told, "Sorry, no, your plans are garish." Now, most thinking people would then ask, "What does that mean exactly?" And the Board Chairman would look at you and say sit down, come back when your plans are not garish. This happens regularly, but since this Board bullies mostly small business owners, what choices do they have except to try and appease the dingys on the Board? In many ways, the Vienna Town Code and the Players administering it could have starred in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory:

"There is no life I know
To compare with pure imagination
Living there, you'll be free
If you truly wish to be."

That song lyric says about as much as Vienna's review board codes - nothing.