Fast Fuels loses appeal

By Cheryl Chumley

Published: July 8, 2008

The efforts of Fast Fuels officials to keep the colors of their Old Bridge Road station sign intact were unsuccessful, as Prince William supervisors Tuesday voted down their appeal, 8-0.

"We have to enforce the rules," said Chairman Corey Stewart, R-at-large, just seconds before the vote to deny the company's request to keep its striped sign was recorded.

The rules, according to zoning staff and board members, were simple: Empire Petroleum Holdings, the family-owned and operated company with 36 station locations to its name, including this particular Fast Fuels in Woodbridge, violated the terms of a special use permit that required the canopy and fascia signage to remain white.

Station owners are now out $32,000, their cited cost of wrapping the canopy in red, white and yellow stripes.

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Prior to the vote, company officials told supervisors they thought their 2007 application for a special use permit had clearly indicated plans to deviate from the white canopy—the color of choice of the four previous station owners at that site since 1996.

"Based on the approval of our permits we believed, and now detrimentally relied on the belief, we were allowed to restore the canopy, wrap it, put our logo back up there, to the tune of $32,000," said Empire's general counsel and vice president. "We did go through the proper channels to try to get the permitting … we cannot afford to make mistakes in the range of tens of thousands of dollars."

At the same time, community residents felt just as strongly to the contrary.

"Granting Empire Holding's appeal would subordinate the community standards to choose the overall appearance for our community to that of a corporation, reject the finding of the [county] zoning administrator and create precedence for those who would capriciously preempt terms of existing [special use] conditions," said the vice chair of the Lake Ridge-Occoquan-Coles Civic Association, the citizens group that complained about the stripes.

In short, he added, during citizens' time, "they broke the rules and should not be allowed to continue."

Supervisor Mike May, R-Occoquan District, also raised the point during questioning that Empire officials did receive a letter from the county zoning administrator several days before the station signage was complete. May asked when the painting was completed; Empire's counsel said the canopy and signage were completed by May 15. The supervisor then asked when the letter notifying of zoning violation was received, and counsel said May 9.

"We do a good job with our special permit process," May said. "We make sure it's a good fit for the community" before approving.

Staff writer Cheryl Chumley can be reached at 703-670-1907.