Inside the Legal Mind of Vienna Town Attorney Steve Briglia

Steve Briglia, Town of Vienna Attorney
(otherwise known as Maud's enforcer)

Recently the Town of Vienna raised fees on "rezoning" requests. Of course, there are not many of those in Vienna so it probably didn't signal much to the average Vienna resident. However, the move was a thinly disguised punitive measure aimed at those citizens who dare challenge the historic district. Maudasaurus, knowing how her action would look, was even quoted trying to say that it was not punitive. Well THAT comment was the siren call to investigate.

We requested to see all rezoning requests since 1995. The Town's Zoning Administrator Greg Hembree and his staff supplied this list:

1. Carters Glen in the 200 block of Moorefield, SW
2. Beulah Rd Associates at 120 Beulah Rd.
3. 112/114 Courthouse
4. Nutley Street Park
5. PMY associates request to be removed from historic district
6. (5) properties requesting to be removed from historic district

Numbers one through four were actual changes in the zoning. Five and six were requests to be removed from the historic district. It is Steve Briglia's opinion that a request to be removed from the historic district changes the words in the zoning code, so hence they classify those requests as zoning changes and so in turn now charge $2000 dollars for a citizen to stand before Council and ask to be removed from the historic district. While that logic is utterly bankrupt, if it is consistent across all citizens, then the majority has spoken and that's it.

Not so fast.

The list the Town supplied was incomplete. The Town left out one "rezoning" on purpose. They left out the infamous ADDITION to the historic district in 1998. Charles Anderson of Capital Trade built a brand new house in 1998 and asked the Town Council (which included Steve Briglia at the time) to add his new house to the historic district. It received no review from the Town's review board and Anderson paid NO rezoning fee, but Briglia and the rest of Council added it to the historic district. Why would Hembree leave this rezoning request out of his 2007 list?

In 1998 before the Town Council voted to add this property to the historic district, the then Town Attorney John Gionfriddo took an honest stance toward whether or not a change in the boundary of the historic district was a rezoning. He said:

The act of including or not including the property in the historic District is not a zoning or rezoning action and therefore, cannot be spot zoning. The age of the structure has no bearing on whether or not it should be included in the district. Your attention is invited to Section 18-280.2 of the Town's zoning ordinance concerning the boundaries of the Windover Heights Historic district. You will note that it is a historic district created by boundary and makes no reference to the age or character of the structures within the boundary. I have always maintained that if Abraham Lincoln had been assassinated at the local Giant, that structure would be historic. One the other hand, the mayor's antique chicken house is very old, but in my mind has no historic value."

At that time Greg Hembree (he was the Zoning Administrator then too) referred to the act of adding a property to the historic district as an "ordinance amendment". What changed now to make removing a property a "rezoning"? Well, if Hembree doesn't deliver the "logic" the Town Council wants, he might find himself out of a job. Isn't Maud a sweet old lady?