THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, July 27, 1994 TAG: 9407270407
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MAC DANIEL, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: SUFFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 93 lines
A drawn-out battle over a weed-choked field came to a cutting end on Tuesday.
But a mystery remains: Who was the man on a tractor who finally mowed a portion of the property?
Residents around this field called it Weedgate, a drama whose elements included the field, city code violations, angry neighbors and the land's owner - Frank B. Nelms, father of Republican Del. Robert E. Nelms and brother of J.W. Nelms, Suffolk's mayor from 1978 to 1980.
For at least a year, Frank Nelms' weed-infested field next to the manicured lawns of the Schooner Cove development had remained uncut and untended despite specific city ordinances banning such neglect.
Late Monday, as a reporter tried to contact him about the field, Nelms reportedly drove a tractor there and began to mow it. Neighbors say he achieved only a few swipes at the property, which is larger than two football fields, before a downpour forced him home.
On Tuesday afternoon, a man identifying himself as John Wright stopped his tractor and said he was hired by Nelms to cut the grass. Nelms, he said, would be coming later.
When a reporter said he would wait for the owner, the man picked up the blades of his mower and drove away, leaving three-quarters of the field uncut.
Neighbors later said that they believed the tractor driver was Nelms.
Was it? Only Nelms knows for sure. And he wasn't saying.
``I don't know what you're talking about,'' Nelms said when asked by telephone if he had been on the tractor and going by the name John Wright. He declined to discuss the issue further.
Since at least January 1993, the city has issued a bevy of letters to Nelms and to residents who complained about the site. Most of the letters stated that the field was in violation of city ordinances. The city won't comment on the squabble.
``We have an ongoing correspondence and discussion with the owner,'' said Leon Johnson, Suffolk's assistant city manager. ``And that being the case, we don't give out the details.''
Neighbors had protested repeatedly about the field. One took the issue to court, but the case was continued indefinitely.
``The only reason he's getting away with it is because of who he is,'' said Jo Ann Brooks, who filed the court case and also serves as treasurer of the Schooner Cove Civic League. ``This is a battle - a never-ending battle. And all it is, is a ploy to keep from mowing the grass.
``Our feeling is he owned all that land back there, and he smiled all the way to the bank. And here we are, sitting behind this field of weeds.''
On Tuesday, Brooks said she was not satisfied with the tractor operator's effort.
``Technically, I think it looks worse than it did to start with,'' she said, noting that the mowing has occurred between rows of loblolly pine, leaving thin strips of weeds and trees sticking up in the air. ``I think this gets people more upset than when it was just an overgrown field.''
The field is the first thing one sees when entering this development adjacent to the Sleepy Hole Golf Course in northern Suffolk.
Suffolk's city code states that weeds cannot grow taller than 15 inches in property zoned as R-1. Much of Nelms' vegetation dwarfs that restriction. Some plants are as tall as 3 feet.
In 1991, the city created an ordinance that no longer allowed agriculture in R-1 zoned property, unless the land had been used for agriculture before Dec. 18, 1991, and continued to be farmed for an uninterrupted two years. Schooner Cove, including Nelms' land, is zoned as R-1 property.
Three months after this law was created, neighbors claim, Nelms planted soybeans in the field and asked the city to grandfather the site as agricultural.
Last year, Nelms returned and planted tiny loblolly pines in the field. A sign among them states, ``LOBLOLLY PINE, PLANTED IN 1993. WATCH THEM GROW.''
Problem is, the city said the pines may also violate the code, because sowing rows of trees could constitute forestry, which is not permitted either in R-1 zones.
Throughout this tangled story, Nelms has said the land has been farmed for decades. Neighbors dispute that fact, pointing to the weeds and foot-tall pines.
In protest, resident Ed Bottoms erected his own sign adjacent to a cable box on his property that was surrounded by tall, browning weeds.
``Ornamental Vegetation,'' the sign read. ``Indigenous - 1994 Watch it Grow.''
Tuesday, with some of Nelms' lot mowed, Bottoms removed his sign and cut the tiny protest plot of weeds. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
JOHN H. SHEALLY II/Staff
Some people think the overgrown field near the Schooner Cove
development looks worse than it did before a man cut part of the
weeds Monday and Tuesday. The tractor operator mowed between rows of
loblolly pine.
by CNB