At the Jan 01 meeting, the owner of an Italian Restaurant in Arlington (see menu below) expressed an interest in setting up an Italian Restaurant in the Dixie Pig.

This is all very tentative.

While many expressed an interest in another 'neighborhood' restaurant, not everyone was so interested in an Italian menu. All were concerned that the restaurant should NOT be a destination restaurant, since there is insufficient parking to support such.

For any new readers, this site is ZONED for residential.

Under this zoning, the owner of the property has the right to decide how he wants to use this property. If the property owner decides to build on the site, he could build multiple town houses. They do not need zoning approval to do this.

This could impact access to the alley between the homes on Powhatan Street and Portner Road.

However, if the owner rents out the current facility or sells it for use as a restaurant, it would be a non-conforming use for this site. The restaurant operator then needs to obtain a Special Use Permit (SUP) from the city.
The city will only provide the SUP if we, the civic association, reach a consensus. Then, if they fail to live up to the terms of the SUP, they could be closed.

On 10 May, I sent an e-mail to our membership expressing concern that the applicant was offering only lip service to the terms of the SUP (with things like off street parking for employees) and once he bought property and invested in improvements, City Hall would be reluctant to shut him down for violations. Your response to City Hall caused Council to defer on the SUP until 12 June, to provide opportunity for NECA and the applicant to come to an agreement.

At the May meeting, the attendees, with some exceptions, expressed little concern about any issues. They wanted a neighborhood restaurant and had come to believe this applicant was it. The President was charged to try to fix weakness in SUP, but to not oppose application.

Accordingly, NECA forwarded a letter on June 11 to City Hall recommending approval of the applicant's SUP for a restaurant at the site of the Dixie Pig.