Shelby shooting range may re-open

By Jane DeGeorge
Eagle Reporter
Published: April 11, 2008

Officials are considering re-opening the Madison County Sheriff’s Office shooting range after it was closed this past year due to a noise complaint.
The range, which had been in use since the mid-1980s, is located on a portion of county-owned land off Route 662 (Shelby Road), also home to the county transfer station and its animal shelter.

County officials decided to postpone use of the range in June 2007 after receiving a noise complaint from a nearby property owner, according to County Administrator Lisa Kelley. The zoning administrator and county attorney looked into the allowed usage of the property in regards to its zoning and determined that for “the intensity of use and the location of the use, [we would] need a special use permit specific to that,” Kelley said. County officials say they have received other complaints about the shooting range in the past.

Since the shooting range’s closure, law enforcement officials have been using firing ranges in Luray, Culpeper and Louisa, according to Sheriff Erik Weaver. The sheriff’s office included an extra $40,000 in its budget for the coming fiscal year for increased mileage, over-time and equipment costs due to this change, Weaver said.

At the time of the most recent complaint, the sheriff said his office performed noise tests near the complainant’s property and found that “a cricket [nearby] was louder than the firing blasts,” he said.

The board had always planned to pursue re-opening the range, according to Kelley. Officials thought it could be incorporated into a future “longer range plan for use of the property,” she said.

The supervisors have discussed rezoning the 240-acre site from agricultural use to either Industrial, Limited M-1 zoning or Industrial, General M-2 zoning. The uses permitted by right in these zoning districts include, a manufacturing or assembly plant, a warehouse, a laboratory or a public service utilities facility, among other possible uses.

However, “given the current budget situation…we’re not ready to look forward to other uses of the property,” Kelley said.
The county administrator said that the sheriff has said that it costs more for officers to train at out-of-county ranges and “to the extent that’s the case, it’s a good reason to look at [re-opening the county range].”

Officials are currently discussing applying for a special use permit to re-open the shooting range, according to Supervisors Chairman Eddie Dean.
The county’s capital improvements program, which is a planning guide of current and future spending on large construction projects and purchases of expensive equipment, includes future plans to make changes to the existing shooting range site in order to increase a noise buffer around the range.