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Welcome to Fairfax Underground, a project site designed to improve communication among residents of Fairfax County, VA. Feel free to post anything Northern Virginia residents would find interesting.
Proposed paintball regulations might impact sports fields too
Posted by:
Paintball!
()
Date: September 15, 2011 05:03PM
Proposed paintball regulations might impact sports fields too
Tuesday, Sep. 13 by Crystal Owens
http://www.loudountimes.com/index.php/news/article/proposed_paintball_regulations_might_impact_sports_fields_too898/
A county subcommittee will continue to work on a proposal to amend regulations that would limit the size of rural recreational outdoor facilities in western Loudoun.
Loudoun supervisors forwarded the plan to the county Transportation and Land Use Committee on Sept. 12 after a public hearing where they heard pitches from the public for and against more stringent regulations.
The amendments, if approved, would better mitigate impacts, provide protection of the environment and control over construction of facilities in western Loudoun, according to staff reports. If accepted, it would apply to new facilities and the expansion of existing structures.
Amending the regulations came to the board’s attention in September 2009 when Supervisor Jim Burton (I-Blue Ridge) began receiving complaints from neighbors of Pev’s Paintball Park off Route 15 south of Gilbert’s Corner.
“I started this initiative some time ago because of valid and justified complaints from neighbors to the paintball facility … The idea was to examine the ordinances to make sure that we did not have an ordinance that would allow similar types of disruptive activities to to be approved and start up in the rural area,” Burton said.
He said he hopes the subcommittee can work to find a “balance between rural activity and rural residents.”
Some residents of the area are concerned that the amendments would hinder groups’ abilities to open new sports fields in western Loudoun – a commodity that’s lacking throughout the county, they said.
“I don’t know what the [amendments] will do to the existing paintball facility since I understand it’s already operational, but what it will do is make developing athletic fields more expensive, more time consuming and more uncertain,” said David Paul of Leesburg, who is working with Evergreen United Methodist Church to develop ball fields for the area.
The proposed amendment regulations would limit minimum structure setback and acreage, maximum structure size, landscaping, access standards, parking requirements, exterior lighting and noise standards, according to a staff report.
The uses would require legislative review of areas zoned agricultural, transitional and the Joint Land Management Area with the western Loudoun towns.
The amendments would not apply to camping or equestrian facilities.
Residents in favor of the new regulations said the rules are needed to keep another paint ball facility from opening in western Loudoun.
“Paintball Parks in and of themselves is not what is at issue. Where they’re located is. They threaten a fragile balance of nature …,” said Diana Twining, who lives adjacent to Pev’s Paintball Park.
Millions of paintball pellets are expelled each year at Pev’s Paintball Park, Twining said, and take years to degrade and are left for animals and birds to ingest.
“Birds see these as seeds,” she said. “I have personally seen birds a mile from Pev’s with these pellets in the claws.”
Steve Hines, also a neighbor of Pev’s, said the facility causes with traffic, noise and pollution from the paint pellets.
“I would like to see paintball facilities moved to another zoning area of Loudoun County where the problems that they cause in the rural area can be monitored much more closely,” Hines said.
Supervisors agreed to move the issue to subcommittee for more work to try and find a way to mitigate the impact on rural friendly facilities, such as ball fields.
“We started off this issue to address one particular use that we really can’t impact at this point in time unless they decide to grow. But what we’ve come up with may potentially cause problems we don’t want to have in this county,” said Chairman Scott York (R-At-Large).
Tuesday, Sep. 13 by Crystal Owens
http://www.loudountimes.com/index.php/news/article/proposed_paintball_regulations_might_impact_sports_fields_too898/
A county subcommittee will continue to work on a proposal to amend regulations that would limit the size of rural recreational outdoor facilities in western Loudoun.
Loudoun supervisors forwarded the plan to the county Transportation and Land Use Committee on Sept. 12 after a public hearing where they heard pitches from the public for and against more stringent regulations.
The amendments, if approved, would better mitigate impacts, provide protection of the environment and control over construction of facilities in western Loudoun, according to staff reports. If accepted, it would apply to new facilities and the expansion of existing structures.
Amending the regulations came to the board’s attention in September 2009 when Supervisor Jim Burton (I-Blue Ridge) began receiving complaints from neighbors of Pev’s Paintball Park off Route 15 south of Gilbert’s Corner.
“I started this initiative some time ago because of valid and justified complaints from neighbors to the paintball facility … The idea was to examine the ordinances to make sure that we did not have an ordinance that would allow similar types of disruptive activities to to be approved and start up in the rural area,” Burton said.
He said he hopes the subcommittee can work to find a “balance between rural activity and rural residents.”
Some residents of the area are concerned that the amendments would hinder groups’ abilities to open new sports fields in western Loudoun – a commodity that’s lacking throughout the county, they said.
“I don’t know what the [amendments] will do to the existing paintball facility since I understand it’s already operational, but what it will do is make developing athletic fields more expensive, more time consuming and more uncertain,” said David Paul of Leesburg, who is working with Evergreen United Methodist Church to develop ball fields for the area.
The proposed amendment regulations would limit minimum structure setback and acreage, maximum structure size, landscaping, access standards, parking requirements, exterior lighting and noise standards, according to a staff report.
The uses would require legislative review of areas zoned agricultural, transitional and the Joint Land Management Area with the western Loudoun towns.
The amendments would not apply to camping or equestrian facilities.
Residents in favor of the new regulations said the rules are needed to keep another paint ball facility from opening in western Loudoun.
“Paintball Parks in and of themselves is not what is at issue. Where they’re located is. They threaten a fragile balance of nature …,” said Diana Twining, who lives adjacent to Pev’s Paintball Park.
Millions of paintball pellets are expelled each year at Pev’s Paintball Park, Twining said, and take years to degrade and are left for animals and birds to ingest.
“Birds see these as seeds,” she said. “I have personally seen birds a mile from Pev’s with these pellets in the claws.”
Steve Hines, also a neighbor of Pev’s, said the facility causes with traffic, noise and pollution from the paint pellets.
“I would like to see paintball facilities moved to another zoning area of Loudoun County where the problems that they cause in the rural area can be monitored much more closely,” Hines said.
Supervisors agreed to move the issue to subcommittee for more work to try and find a way to mitigate the impact on rural friendly facilities, such as ball fields.
“We started off this issue to address one particular use that we really can’t impact at this point in time unless they decide to grow. But what we’ve come up with may potentially cause problems we don’t want to have in this county,” said Chairman Scott York (R-At-Large).
Re: Proposed paintball regulations might impact sports fields too
Posted by:
mancannon
()
Date: October 03, 2011 08:32PM
sorry, airsoft CQB beat the paintballers here by about, oh, sixteen years, something like that