Tag: zenith quest

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Lights dimmed at Rockfish Valley ammo warehouse

Zenith Quest has reduced the wattage at its ammunition warehouse after residents complained it was too bright a spot in the Rockfish Valley at night. Photo by Anna Kariel/SkycladAP

When the nearly complete Zenith Quest plant in Nelson County turned on the lights in September, Afton resident Dave Connolly said it looked like a “landing strip” from his home 800′ above. He attended a Nelson supervisors meeting October 11 and says within 24 hours, the lights had been turned down.

“It’s like night and day—literally,” he says.

After the supes’ meeting, Connolly said Nelson’s director of planning, Tim Padalino, came to his house to check out the nightscape, and went to the new scenic overlook on U.S. 250, where the lights were also visible, according to Connolly.

Padalino says Zenith Quest voluntarily rewired some of the lights for more flexibility in turning them on and off, and replaced some exterior lights with those designed to eliminate glare on existing properties and rights of way.

“I was totally amazed by how quickly they responded,” says Connolly.“ [Supervisor] Tommy Harvey was very supportive. He said more people had called about the lights than about the pipeline.”

“They were a problem,” says Harvey. “[Zenith Quest] is willing to do what needs to be done.”

Zenith Quest project manager Ray Miles told C-VILLE in September the lighting was approved by the county—and there was more to come.

Since the wattage has been lowered, says Miles, “I really don’t have any comments.”

Now the parking lot lights around the massive 84,000-square-foot facility are “just a soft glow, compared to the loading dock lights shining up at eye level in every window in our house,” says Connolly. “It’s a huge difference.”

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Night lights: Munitions company shines in Rockfish Valley

More lights are going up at Zenith Quest’s facility on Route 151 in Nelson County. Anna Kariel/SkycladAP

David Connolly used to gaze out the windows of his Afton Mountain home and see twinkling lights and the occasional headlight in the valley below. That was before Zenith Quest International “fired up the lights,” he says, of its already controversial, 84,000-square-foot firearms and ammunition distribution warehouse smack in the middle of Nelson County’s scenic wine and beer byway.

“Although we’re 800′ above them, they shine right in our windows,” says Connolly, who has lived on Stagecoach Road—a couple of miles away from the warehouse—for 13 years. “To me, it’s lit up like a landing strip. You can’t escape.”

The warehouse already stands out in the viewshed as the largest structure visible on Route 151, says Connolly. On September 24, only two of the lights were on, which was “much better,” he says. “Come Monday, they were on full blast.”

And there are more lights to come, according to Zenith Quest project manager Ray Miles. The six lights currently on are to light up the turnaround area for big trucks, he says. Ten more lights are going to be installed in the employee parking lot, and there will be security lights around the perimeter.

“We’re using what was approved in the site plan by the county,” says Miles, a plan that includes “two pages of metrics” on the lighting to be used. “If someone told us they were no longer approved, we’d study it.”

He’s already heard from a local supervisor. “The folks complaining, it’s brand new lighting,” says Miles. “They’re not used to it.”

Tim Padalino is Nelson’s director of planning and zoning, and he says the county’s zoning ordinance and comprehensive plan have requirements that are analogous to dark-sky certifications. Exterior lighting can’t shine onto adjoining properties or the public right of way and it must have full cut-off fixtures.

“Both are designed to prevent light pollution (i.e. light traveling up into the night sky instead of down onto parking areas, sidewalks, patios, etc.), and to preserve dark skies at night,” he writes in an e-mail.

Padalino says he was contacted by Supervisor Tommy Harvey, “who relayed significant concern from Afton residents who are very upset about the lighting at Zenith Quest.” Padalino planned a nighttime visit October 3 to make sure the lights were in compliance with the site plan.

Harvey and Supervisor Allen Hale had not returned calls from C-VILLE at press time, but in an e-mail to Connolly, Hale wrote, “I share your unhappiness over light pollution of the night sky.”

He also says there’s little that can be done about the warehouse, which was a by-right use of the industrial-zoned parcel and did not require Board of Supervisors’ approval.

Connolly, a building professional, acknowledges the building is a done deal. “They have the right to do it, but that doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do,” he says. “They’re not being a good neighbor to Rockfish Valley and Nelson County.”

The warehouse is two-thirds complete—they’re still working on the firing range—and Zenith Quest is waiting for its temporary occupancy permit, says Miles. “We’re getting ready to add landscaping. Trees will cover 80 percent of the front of the building.” That exceeds the 50 percent required on a scenic byway, he says. “When people drive by, they probably won’t see our facility.”

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Gun shy: In Nelson, citizens have no say in ammo warehouse

Jessica Goines, whose extended family lives next door to the Zenith Quest ammunition distribution center, thinks the facility is “too close.” Photo by Mina Pirasteh

Nelson County’s Route 151 in the Rockfish Valley has been called the “Napa Valley of the East Coast.” But some residents fear that appellation will change with the newest development on its scenic byway: a massive 84,000- square-foot ammunition and firearms distribution warehouse that has an indoor firing range.

Neighbor Harold McCauley says he received no notice about the project that’s springing up literally in his backyard. And Nelson residents concerned about a firearms facility on the popular brewery byway have been told they have no standing and no possibility of public input because the project is by-right on industrial-zoned land.

Zenith Quest International, based in Afton, bought the 10-acre parcel from Blue Ridge Builders Supply in March 2014 for $500,000, according to Nelson property records. The company began importing natural stone tile from Turkey, says project manager Ray Miles, but with the demand for ammunition and firearms up, that’s what the new facility will be geared for, along with light manufacturing of firearms.

“Some weapons will be altered when they come here,” says Miles. He stresses they’re pistols or semi-automatic, not automatic weapons. Those firearms will require testing. Hence the 4,000-square-foot firing range in the basement, which will not be open to the public, he says.

The county’s industrial zoning allows noise levels of 70 decibels at the property line. “We aim to be below that,” says Miles.

He shows a reporter at the site the concrete walls that are a foot thick in the basement firing range. “Not much sound gets out of 12-inch concrete,” he says. “I don’t think our neighbors are going to be bothered at all.”

No ammunition will be manufactured at the site, assures Miles. And with a sprinkler system and 100,000 gallons of water on hand, he says, “No one is in danger from ammunition stored there if there’s a fire.”

Justin Shimp, an engineer who lives about a mile from the site, has appealed the county’s zoning determinations three times, and has been told three times he has no standing in the process. Shimp, who questioned the landscaping and emergency access to the property, as well as whether a firing range is an appropriate use under M-2 zoning, says he doesn’t have a problem with Zenith Quest so much as with how business is done in Nelson County.

For example, unlike Charlottesville and Albemarle, where even with by-right development, notice is sent out to all adjacent property owners, state law doesn’t require that, nor does Nelson County, says Shimp.

Nearby North Branch School, whose mission is to “foster respect, non-violence, environmental responsibility” and community involvement, has had no direct interaction with the company, according to a statement from the school.

Members of the Planning Commission told the school the project is by-right, and that “Zenith Quest has been responsive to requests from Nelson County and has made appropriate changes to their site plan,” says the North Branch statement.

Although the Zenith Quest site plan was approved at a public Planning Commission meeting, “They don’t permit public comment,” says Shimp. And despite County Administrator Steve Carter opining in an e-mail that a firing range is not a permitted use under the industrial zoning, Zenith Quest’s site plan was approved.

Shimp contends the project has been pushed through by longtime Supervisor Tommy Harvey, who rents Zenith Quest its current headquarters and whose son has done work on the new facility.

“Now you just stop right there,” Harvey says when asked about his ties to the project. “[Zenith Quest owners Kutlay and Hanri Kaya] bought that property long before they ever became my tenants,” he says. “My son bid on that project like everyone else. I had nothing to do with that whatsoever.” Nor has the project come before the Board of Supervisors for a vote, he says.

Harvey, who was elected to the board in 1984, says the property has been zoned industrial for 20 years, and the new operations will bring tax revenue and 30 jobs.

And he disagrees with residents who say a weaponry distribution center isn’t the type of business they want to see in Rockfish Valley. “We’re overrun with wineries,” says Harvey.

The McCauley family, whose properties are adjacent to Zenith Quest, has lived on Avon Road for several generations, and Harold McCauley can see the warehouse rising at the edge of his property. His daughter, Jessica Goines, lives next door, and says, “I can throw a rock and hit it.”

McCauley, who with his brother granted Zenith Quest an easement for emergency vehicles on their private road called Family Lane, says, “We’ve gotten very little information.”

“Having ammunition in a neighborhood backyard is just crazy,” says Goines.

Shimp prefers the Rockfish Valley as a corridor of winemaking, not weapons manufacturing. “I’m not an anti-gun guy,” he says. “This is a beautiful place. I don’t want to be the second road on the left after gunfire.”

“That’s not going to happen,” promises Miles. The landscaping will provide 80 percent coverage, not the 50 percent required by the county, he says. And the roof will be green to mitigate the views from the nearby Blue Ridge Parkway.

“We went to every length we could,” he says. “We understand it’s a scenic byway.” And if anyone has a concern, says Miles, they should give him a call.