Richmond’s Board of Zoning Appeals voted 5-0 Wednesday to reject an effort to overrule a city decision allowing the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts to build a 12,000-square-foot art storage warehouse on a residential block in the Museum District.

A group of neighbors taken by surprise last year when construction fencing showed up next to their homes have been challenging VMFA’s plan for the storage warehouse, arguing the state-owned museum is abusing its governmental status to thwart city zoning rules.

Though the zoning board denied the appeal, the group of neighbors also have a lawsuit pending in the courts that hasn’t been resolved. The decision by the Board of Zoning Appeals frees the city to issue work permits for the project, which means construction of the warehouse could begin shortly as the opponents weigh their next steps.

The storage museum is slated to be built on a piece of land across Grove Avenue from the main museum building, behind where the VMFA’s Studio School is located. Though the land is zoned for residential use, city officials have opined that the proposed warehouse is an extension of a government-owned museum and therefore allowed under residential zoning rules.

Publicly owned amenities like schools, parks, libraries and museums are allowed in residential areas, and the VMFA zoning case hinges on whether an art warehouse far bigger than a typical shed or storage building can be slotted into that category.

The neighborhood group — represented by attorneys with the Sands Anderson law firm — contends that decision is incorrect because it grants VMFA outsized power to build any type of building it wants on any lot zoned for residential use.

“If VMFA did not exist, would this building be considered a museum?”  Sands Anderson attorney Adam Winston asked at Wednesday’s hearing.

Countering that position were city Zoning Administrator William C. Davidson and VMFA attorney Preston Lloyd. A warehouse used to store a museum’s artifacts, they said, should be considered part of the museum’s core functions, even if it sits on a different piece of property across the street.

“They’re doing a whole lot of different things other than just showing paintings on the wall,” Davidson said of the VMFA.

Lloyd, who works for the Williams Mullen law firm, said the museum’s current art storage space is “sprinkled throughout the museum” and the new building is needed as part of the museum’s broader expansion project.

“The museum must have adequate space to store its collection,” Lloyd said.

In response to the suggestion the warehouse could also be considered an accessory building for the Studio School in addition to the main museum because some art could be transferred between the school and the warehouse, Winston said the warehouse “dwarfs the Studio School in size and scope.”

“It has 30-foot security walls,” he said. “And it’s 15 feet from my client’s property.”

Under the Board of Zoning Appeals rules, the neighborhood group had to prove the city’s zoning decision was wrong. The board agreed unanimously that burden of proof hadn’t been met, but some members said they sympathized with the neighbors’ plight.

“In reality it’s in an industrial warehouse,” said board member Susan Sadid. "It’s not a museum or a school or a recreational facility. It’s an industrial warehouse in a residential neighborhood."

Museum representatives have acknowledged they failed to properly notify the neighbors about the project prior to the construction fencing going up. There were some attempts for the two sides to meet and work out their differences, but those meetings were apparently antagonistic and not particularly productive.

Saying she hoped the museum and neighbors could come to an agreement, Sadid made a motion to continue the case for 30 days to let the two sides talk. That motion failed when no other member seconded it. 

The board then voted 5-0 to uphold the city’s position.

“It’s not an absolutely clear-cut decision,” said board Vice Chairman Roger York Jr., adding he wasn’t convinced the city was obviously wrong to treat the warehouse as an extension of the museum for zoning purposes.

Board Chairman Rodney M. Poole, who also chairs the Richmond Planning Commission, seemed to be more firmly on the side of the city and the museum.

After Sadid said she was bothered by the museum’s lack of outreach to the neighborhood, Poole said he would oppose her motion to delay the case because whether VMFA was or wasn’t being neighborly is “not really relevant to this decision.”

“This has been a well-argued case,” Poole said. “But it really boils down to what’s the use proposed for this property.”

When Thomas Courtney — of the neighbors opposed to the warehouse — stood up during the meeting, Poole quickly told him he wasn’t allowed to speak according to the meeting rules. Courtney said he was simply trying to confer with his lawyer as the appeal was being presented.

Winston said he agreed the museum is an "incredible asset" to Richmond and Virginia and insisted his clients are not “obstructionists.”

But the public, he said, was cut out of the warehouse planning process because the city didn’t make the museum go through the process of applying for a special use permit, or SUP, that would require more than a behind-the-scenes approval by city staff.

“The advantage to the public of an SUP process,” he said, “is input.”