Bellevue Civic Association

May 24, 2002

Dear Member of Richmond City Council:

Crisis Pregnancy Center’s application for a special use permit to provide “social services delivery”
at 4100 Brook Road is scheduled to be heard at your May 28^th meeting (Ord. 2001-332), and we
would like you to know the position of the Bellevue Civic Association membership.

The Bellevue Civic Association has made several efforts to objectively educate residents about
CPC’s proposed uses and the anticipated impacts on adjacent residential properties. At our
July 17, 2001 general meeting featuring CPC presenters and attended by nearly 100 residents,
in dozens of phone calls and e-mails, and in a petition circulated by neighbors and signed by
more than 500 residents, your citizens have consistently communicated by a four-to-one margin
that this is an inappropriate use of the property (the objections expressed in these forums are
listed on the next page). Clearly, a large majority of Bellevue and Ginter Park
residents oppose Crisis Pregnancy’s application. The Planning Commission
 – including our Third District Councilman, Bill Johnson – agreed when it
unanimously recommended denial of the CPC permit request on November 5^th.

The Council hearing on the permit was originally scheduled for November 12, 2001, but Crisis
Pregnancy Center (CPC) asked for a continuance to February 25, 2002. At that meeting they were
 granted a second deferral to May 28^th. CPC held a community meeting February 26^th and indicated
they would amend their plans. No amended plan has been filed (to our knowledge). They then
notified us on May 3^rd that they will request yet another deferral to October 2002, but as of today
the Clerk’s Office had not received a written request for deferral. In the meantime they requested
a zoning certificate and attempted to include the material goods collection and distribution that has
clearly been one of the neighborhood’s major concerns. Their tactics can only be interpreted as
intended to confuse those who have valid concerns about their plans and want to communicate
those concerns to you. This clearly does not constitute a good faith effort to work with the neighborhood.

It would be our preference that you hear this matter at the May 28th meeting
and decide this issue rather than continue to be manipulated by CPC’s delaying
tactics. We regret that CPC obtained this property without the proper zoning in place, but that doesn’t
mean we have to approve a land use that the Planning Commission clearly stated is incompatible with a
residential neighborhood.

We will be available to discuss these issues with you at any time, and I will be present at the Council
sessions on the 28^th to answer your questions. Thank you for your attention on this and other issues that
determine the future of our neighborhood and our City. If I can answer any questions, please don’t hesitate
to contact me at 371-7041 weekdays or at 264-1362 evenings and weekends.

                                                            Best wishes,
                                                            Tim Pfohl, President

P.O. Box 9282, Richmond, Virginia 23227     Security Hotline 257-9705     http://members.tripod.com/johnrbutcher

Bellevue Civic Association feedback on Crisis Pregnancy Center
special use permit application for 4100 Brook Road:

Ø      CPC can not accurately anticipate the traffic its facility will generate because
it is adding or expanding several services (ultrasound, medical diagnostics,
goods collection and distribution, birthing and parenting classes, etc.) beyond
what it currently operates in its Carytown location;

Ø      evening and weekend classes will bring more than two dozen attendees and
instructors to the neighborhood at the same time that residents rely on
Amherst Avenue for parking. The CPC site has only 13 off-street parking
spaces, and the church across Brook Road already uses much of the on-street
parking surrounding the CPC site during these same evening and weekend hours;

Ø      unsupervised drop-offs of the “material goods” (cribs, car seats, clothes, food,
diapers, etc.) can not be controlled when staff is not at the site, so we could
have a situation where goods are sitting in plain view when the facility is closed,
and perhaps attract scavengers looking to take the goods;

Ø      CPC has been picketed at their Carytown site (as recently as late last year),
and disturbances by clients have resulted in calls for police assistance. These
are clearly not activities that should be occurring in a residential neighborhood.

Ø        this is not a “neighborhood commercial” use as the City’s master plan recommends
for this site, it is a regional use that will bring CPC clients from the entire
metropolitan area. CPC’s own statistics show that only four per cent of their
clients live in the 23227 zip code, which extends far into Henrico. This property,
the lone RO-1 zoned lot in the area, is abutted on three sides by R-5 residential
properties, and on one side by a B-1 commercial zone. Social service delivery is
not permitted by right in either RO-1, B-1, B-2 or B-3 commercial zones. In fact,
this type of social service use is only allowed by right in B-4 central commercial
zoning district;

Ø        CPC’s repeated requests to defer the Council hearing can be construed
as an effort to confuse citizens about when the matter will be decided
and thwart the ability of citizens to be heard by Council;

Ø      Perhaps most importantly, the current RO-1 (Residence-Office) zoning allows a wide
array of uses that would benefit a far greater number of Northside households than
CPC’s uses, including lawyers, doctors, dentists, architects, realtors, accountants,
insurance sales and much more. The zoning is not “broken” and it does not need
to be permanently “fixed” by approving social service delivery uses that would
continue to apply to that property regardless of who any future owner may be.
Because CPC is a nonprofit, this property was obtained in a sale that provided
substantial tax advantages for the seller. It is unfortunate that CPC acquired the
property before obtaining the necessary approvals for their intended uses, but there
has been no sincere effort to market the property for uses allowed under its
current zoning.